The Long Way Home
by Glass Shoe
Summary: Sometimes you have to step back to go forward. Ponyboy returns to Tulsa after a near fatal encounter.
1. Chapter 1

Title: The Long Way Home

Rating: T

Summary: Sometimes you have to step back to go forward. Ponyboy returns to Tulsa after a near-fatal encounter.

Warnings: First-person POV, violence, discussion of drug use, some language

Disclaimers: I don't own _The Outsiders_ or any of the characters therein. I am not making any money from this. This story was written for entertainment only.

Apologies: Once again, I'm only human. Please forgive any mistakes.

Author's notes: This story takes place ten years after the events in _The Outsiders_. Soda's fate was inspired by one of the interviews on the DVD. I made up the rest.

I've wanted to write an _Outsiders_ story since I first read the book when I was young, back when cell phones weighed five pounds. Here it is. Enjoy.

XXXXX

The first time I was stabbed I was twenty-four years old. I'd been cut before, and guys had pulled blades on me plenty of times, but that was the first time I'd come close to being killed with one.

It happened very early on a Friday morning in March as I was leaving a bar in Chicago. I was walking by myself and I wasn't carrying a blade. Right after it happened I remember laying there on the wet pavement, thinking that after all these years Darry was still right; I don't ever use my head.

I can't remember the name of the bar, except that it had blue and pink neon lights out front. I'd only been living in Chicago for about four months. The place was in a part of the city I wasn't all that familiar with. I was there to meet a contact for a story that I was working on: some big union scandal. I wish I could describe it better than that, but if you want to know the truth, I barely knew anything about it.

I was working for the Chicago Tribune, but not as a reporter. I was a gofer, which is one step up from working in the mailroom. I was fresh off of a newspaper job in Memphis. I'd come to Chicago hoping that I'd get a chance to write for a real newspaper, but until someone died or got promoted, I was stuck answering phones and fetching coffee.

My boss, Charlie, was a real reporter for the Tribune. He'd gotten an anonymous phone call earlier in the week from somebody who said he had information for one of Charlie's stories. For a price, he wanted to talk. Charlie was already under a deadline for another story, so he wrote up a list of questions and asked me if I was up for it. Of course I said "yes". If I'd had two broken arms and had to write with a pencil between my teeth I still would have done the interview.

I met Charlie's anonymous caller in a part of the city called New Town. He was a big guy with callused hands and a big black mustache. He called himself "Murray" and he didn't waste any time asking about the "payment" that he and Charlie had talked about. Charlie had given me a manila envelop along with his list of questions. I slid it across the table. Murray looked inside and seemed satisfied with the contents. He asked me what I wanted to know.

Murray answered my questions in a low voice, like he knew that he wasn't supposed to be saying the things that he was saying, not that I could tell one way or the other. I'm usually pretty good at keeping up with current events. You have to be if you want to write for a newspaper, but the questions that Charlie had given me didn't seem to make any kind of sense at all. They made sense to Murray, though, and I guess that was what mattered. Besides, when I'd mentioned it to Charlie, he'd said that I was probably safer if I didn't know what I was asking about. It turned out that he was right.

I finished the interview around two in the morning. The bar was empty except for the two of us and the bartender. I was ready to put my head down and go to sleep right there on the table. I'd had more to drink than I realized. I don't usually drink much, but it would have looked strange to sit in a bar all night and not drink. Besides, I wanted to keep pace with Murray as he downed one beer after another.

I felt someone shaking me by the elbow. "Kid," Murray asked me, "You think you've got enough for your story?"

Even at twenty-four I guess I still looked pretty young. I was too beat to get offended and instead I gave him a tired nod.

Murray slapped me on the shoulder and gave me a small smile, "Good luck, kid." Then he grabbed his coat and walked out into the cold night air. I stayed behind, organizing my notes and talking to the bartender, Ricky. Ricky wasn't too friendly. As I folded up my notes and tucked them in my jacket he said, "Watch yourself, kid." There was something about the way that he said it that made it sound more like a threat than a warning. When I look back now, I think he knew what was about to happen.

The trains had stopped running and I didn't have enough money for a cab. Even though it was still winter, the weather had been pretty good. It was cold outside, a lot colder than Tulsa would be this time of year, but it wasn't raining or anything, and the wind was calm. Not a bad night for a long walk.

I could tell this wasn't the greatest part of town, but I'd seen worse. I didn't think I looked like much of a target. I was wearing dark jeans and a blue sweater. The only decent piece of clothing I owned was my brown suede jacket, which I'd bought at a second-hand shop. I snapped up the collar and set off down the alley.

I got maybe half a block when I thought I heard someone following me. After a moment I stopped. The footsteps stopped too. Despite myself I felt a chill run down my spine. I tried to breathe normally. 'It's your own steps echoing, Ponyboy," I told myself. My imagination is way too active for my own good. Right then I was scaring the daylights out of myself. I was breathing hard and glancing around at the shadows like I was expecting some monster to jump out at me.

I stood there for a minute, and when nothing happened I felt my heart start to beat slower. I've always had a pretty active imagination, and sometimes it runs away with me. I laughed nervously at myself.

"Get a grip, Pony," I whispered. The words were barely out of my mouth when something heavy and dark slammed me bodily into the side of a dumpster. My hands tore at a big leather-clad arm. I remember it being black leather. It was too dark to tell what color it actually was, but that's how I pictured it.

There was a rough hand in my jacket pocket and a rougher voice right in my ear saying, "Don't you dare scream, man. Don't you dare scream." I didn't even feel the knife until he was pulling it out of me. Then I was lying on the asphalt on my side, watching two pages of my handwritten notes drift to the ground like leaves.

I remember lying there, listening to the retreating footfalls of the man who'd stabbed me and thinking, _Oh God, Darry, I'm so sorry._


	2. Chapter 2

The doctor who patched me up told me later that I'd scared the hell out of some old lady, hammering on her door like a madman at three in the morning. I don't remember that part. I don't remember getting to my feet or staggering into the apartment building they found me in. I don't remember the old lady or anything before waking up in a hospital bed with tubes sticking out of my arm and a man with gray hair, round-rimmed glasses and a stethoscope hovering over me, telling me I was a very lucky young man. He kept looking at a clipboard while he said it, like he was telling it to the chart. The knife had missed every vital organ. It had slid into me just below the heart. "Lucky" still hurt an awful lot, I thought.

I spent the next couple of days doing a lot of sleeping, and in between, a lot of talking. My wallet was gone and the nurses thought I was loopy on pain medication when I told them my name was Ponyboy. I don't think they were convinced until my boss showed up at the hospital to vouch for me.

On Saturday afternoon the doctor felt like I was doing well enough to talk to the police. I had to convince them that I was a reporter and not a junkie mixed up in some drug deal gone south. It didn't help matters that I was sort of underweight. I'm the type of person who has to exercise to keep weight on. Sounds backwards, I know, but if I don't exercise, I just don't get hungry. I don't get hungry, I don't eat. I'd been working too much to really exercise, so I was looking pretty thin. The doc told them I was clean, though, and they finally believed him.

"Do you have family around here?" Doc asked me on Sunday. He was really a nice old guy I'd found out. He would stop by to chat when he had a free minute. Free time was just hard to come by in this hospital. It seemed like there were a lot of people always coming and going and someone was always pushing a gurney or some kind of machine down the hall.

I was getting lost in the reflections on the shiny linoleum, wondering if they just paid people to walk around with charts and machines all day, just for show. I almost forgot what Doc was saying. "Why?" I asked. I was still kind of out of it. I don't know what they were giving me for the pain but I didn't like the feeling, like I wasn't completely awake.

"Just wondering," he answered. "I haven't seen too many people coming to visit you."

"I'm originally from Tulsa," I said. "I moved here from Memphis four months ago."

"Ah, I have a brother in Memphis."

"My brothers are still in Tulsa," I said. Then suddenly I just didn't have a voice anymore. I told myself it was the drugs, and I'm sure part of it was. I made some sort of noise, and then I shut my mouth in a tight line.

Doc was quiet for a second. Then he gave me a steady look and sad, "Maybe you should give your family a call."

I didn't answer and the doc left quietly.

I never made that phone call, but that afternoon my boss, Charlie, showed up again and told me that the cops had found Murray floating facedown in Lake Michigan. We both agreed that spelled trouble for us both, me especially. We had already figured that I wasn't the victim of some random mugging. Somebody really didn't want that story to get out. My notes from the interview had been stolen and Charlie hadn't been able to get a hold of Murray all weekend. It was like the other shoe had finally dropped.

For the next hour or so I told Charlie all I could remember from our interview. It wasn't as much as he would have liked, but he scribbled down my answers anyway, frowning the whole time. The story about the murder would go to print that night and he suggested that I be unreachable by the time it hit the stands on Monday morning. I agreed.

That night I checked myself out of the hospital against the doctor's orders. Doc didn't seem too upset, but wrote out a prescription for antibiotics and some painkillers. I filled the first one at the hospital pharmacy but crumpled up the painkiller prescription and threw it away. Those things messed with my head too much.

At eight o'clock on Sunday night Charlie dropped me off at Union Station. All I had were the clothes on my back and a gym bag I'd packed quickly at my apartment. I think it had mostly dirty clothes in it, because that was what I could get my hands on the quickest. Charlie didn't get out of the car but he did press two hundred dollars in crumpled tens and twenties into my hand. I think he gave me every bill he had in his wallet. I could tell that he really regretted sending me on that interview, and Charlie wasn't the apologetic type. I didn't ask if I would have a job when I got back. I think that I already knew the answer. When I waved goodbye to Charlie I was pretty sure I'd never see him again.

That nauseous, disconnected feeling from the painkillers was beginning to wear off. It was replaced by the throbbing of my wound and the ache of reality settling in my stomach. I was beginning to regret throwing away that second prescription.

I bought a one-way ticket, not really thinking about anything besides getting out of the city. I suppose I was still too out of it to consider where I was going and what would happen when I got there. It reminded me of that night ten years ago when Johnny and I had hopped a freight train to Windrixville. I hadn't thought about that in years. Back then Johnny was on the run for murdering a Soc who had tried to drown me. Quiet, soft-spoken Johnny, who would never hurt a fly, had killed a boy.

I felt tears start to well up in my eyes and I pulled myself back to the here-and-now. Johnny had been dead and buried for ten years. This time I was alone, and I was running back to Tulsa. I was running back home.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

I tried to sleep on the train but the throbbing of my knife wound kept me awake. Eventually I got desperate enough to ask some of the passengers if they had any aspirin, claiming I had a migraine. One lady who told me how awful I looked while she rummaged around in her purse. She was blond, and had probably been a real looker at one time, but was now just kind of fat. She got a whole lot prettier though when she found a bottle of aspirin in her purse. She asked me how many I needed. I told her "three" but I wanted to ask for more. I didn't dare draw any more attention to myself, though. I was already starting to get a few funny looks from some of the other passengers. I'd noticed that a young woman with a baby in her arms had switched seats with a businessman to get a little further away from me.

It dawned on me that I still had my suede jacket with me. I'd kept it in my gym bag but I hadn't been thinking and I'd pulled it out to use for a pillow. It still had blood on it. It was my blood, but the other passengers didn't know that. Like I said, sometimes I just don't think. I tucked the jacket away and just leaned my head on the cold glass of the window instead.

The aspirins didn't really help but it was way past midnight and I dropped off into a half-sleep anyway, listening to the sound of the cars rumbling over the tracks.

The train stopped Kansas City and I had to take a bus the rest of the way. I was thankful that I hadn't packed anything heavy. I was more stiff and sore than I can ever remember being in my entire life. I actually wished I was back in that hospital.

Once I got on the bus I did my best to keep off my injury, but no matter how I sat or leaned or lay, my skin still pulled at the knife wound. Doc had told me as long as I didn't make any sudden moves the stitches would hold. I was counting on Doc not to let me down, and praying for a smooth ride with no potholes.

It was a five hour bus ride from Kansas City to Tulsa and I didn't sleep a wink the whole way. By the time the bus pulled into the station I was a nervous wreck. I sat up straight as a board and my left heal kept thumping the floor. I was pretty thankful the seats around me were all empty and no one had seemed inclined to talk to me the whole way. I couldn't blame them.

I was a little shaky by the time I stepped off that bus. I'd ridden the train all night and I'd been on that bus all day. I think I smelled pretty ripe by then, although I didn't know how I was going to manage a shower. It was six or seven by then and I hadn't eaten anything since leaving the hospital, but I was too nervous even to think about food. I'd gotten a Coke out of a machine at the bus station, but that hardly counts.

I was beat, but somehow I just couldn't make myself get on a city bus for a ride clear across town. Besides, no one knew I was coming and there was a stop I needed to make on my way home.

Two-Bit Mathews' store was a grocery and mercantile about ten or twelve blocks from the bus station. I called it Two-Bit's store, but the name on the front said "Wicklander's". George Wicklander was Two-Bit's business partner. George was a real smart guy. He already owned two bowling alleys and record store by the time Two-Bit met him. Two-Bit sweet-talked George into going into business with him seventy-thirty. That meant Two-Bit was the junior partner, so he didn't get his name on the sign. I don't think old Two-Bit minded that at all. The profit was what mattered, which was healthy enough to support his wife and baby daughter.

The front of the store looked just like I remembered. It was white brick and the sign spelled out the name "Wicklander's" in big, swooping cursive letters. Someone had painted Easter-eggs and a big white bunny in the window. It's really amazing how you can forget what time of year it is when you're grown up, like Christmas and Easter and Fourth of July just don't matter as much as they used to when you were a kid.

I must have walked a lot slower than I thought. I walked through the front door, ringing the little bell that shops keep above the jamb and a voice called, "Just about to close up, here. Come back tomorrow."

I felt the corners of my mouth curving up into a smile. "Wasn't lookin' to buy nothin' anyhow," I snapped smartly.

The voice laughed. "That a fact?" Then a head with dark hair and rust-colored sideburns poked out from behind a display of fishing tackle and bait. Two-Bit was grinning. When he looked my way his eyes opened wide and his jaw dropped.

"I'll be damned!" Two bit exclaimed. He was holding a rag and he threw it down as he came around the display. Before I knew it I was caught up in a rough bear-hug. When I grunted in pain Two-Bit let me go and backed up, frowning. I got the first good look at him I'd had in a little over a year.

Two-Bit had a stocky frame to begin with and he'd gotten stockier over the years. It didn't help that Sherri, Two-Bit's wife, was a good cook. Sherri was my age, maybe a few months older. She'd been one grade ahead of me in high school. I'd never really talked to her or anything before her and Two-Bit started going together. She was a real good girl, sweet and shy and pretty. She and Two-Bit seemed like kind of a strange match. I asked her once what made her like him so much. She said he made her laugh.

Two-Bit was still holding me by the shoulders, "Y'all right there, Pony?"

"Yeah, I'm good." I managed a weak grin. Two-Bit looked like he didn't believe me but he didn't push it.

"Shoot, kid, I didn't know you were comin'. You shoulda' called. Darry told me you were still in the windy city workin' for some newspaper."

"I was." That was all I said. I needed to change the subject. I'm not sure if I was just tired or what, but I couldn't talk about Chicago yet. "How's Sherri and One-Bit?"

One-Bit was what I called his little girl. Her real name was Susie and she was the apple of her daddy's eye. Two-Bit was crazy for his little girl. Sure enough, as soon as the words were out of my mouth Two-Bit's face lit up like a Christmas tree.

"She's got company," he told me proudly.

Two-Bit reached into his wallet and pulled out a picture of a little red-headed girl in a yellow jumper. In the picture the little girl had her chubby little arms wrapped around a red-headed baby.

"Eleanor Rose," Two-Bit said proudly. "She'll be two months old this Sunday."

I took the photo out of his hands to have a better look. "Shoot, Susie must be four or five by now." I said, amazed. "I didn't even know Sherri was pregnant again."

"Well, hell, Ponyboy, we ain't talked in nearly a year."

"Yeah," I said, kind of sad, "I've been busy. That ain't no excuse, mind you, but…gosh."

Two-Bit slapped me on the shoulder. "Pony, you know that don't bother me none. Let me close up shop and we can get outta here. Have you been to see Darry yet?"

"Nope. Just got in. This is the first stop I've made."

"He's doin' good." Two-Bit locked the front door and pulled the cash out of the drawer, bundling it up with a couple of receipts and checks. He kept talking as he wandered to the back of the store, to the tiny room in the back that he and George used as an office. I followed. "He's got himself a couple of new contracts for this spring. He says he's goin' to have to hire two more guys to get through all the work. Cynthia says he'd better make it three, otherwise she thinks she won't see him again 'til September."

Two-Bit opened the safe and began counting the cash while I stood, dumbfounded in the office doorway.

"Who's Cynthia?"

Two-Bit stopped for a second and looked up at me. "Ol' Darry never mentioned her?"

I shook my head dumbly. I could tell Two-Bit was thinking of saying something smart, but he must have seen something in my face made him think twice before he spoke. It reminded me that he wasn't eighteen anymore. "Cynthia's a schoolteacher, second grade I think. Nice lady. She's got a little girl, seven or eight years old. They haven't been seeing each other very long, maybe six months or so."

"Darry's got a girlfriend?" I think it was about the smartest remark I was capable of making right then.

I must have sounded hurt or something, because Two-Bit kind of sobered up and said: "I'm sure he was plannin' on tellin' you. Hell, I can't believe it's been six months already…Pony?"

I was staring off into space, thinking. Darry had a girlfriend. I mean, he'd dated some when I was a kid, and I knew he'd seen girls off and on after I got out of high school, but never steady. Two-Bit's question surprised me. "What? Yeah, that's great. No, I ain't upset or nothin'."

"C'mon, let's get out of here. I'll drive you home."

Two-Bit spun the dial on the safe, grabbed his jacket off of the back of his chair and flicked the lights off. I picked up my gym bag from where I'd dropped it on the floor. It was dark outside by then, and the two of us walked to his white '65 Pontiac, parked in a pool of light under a streetlamp.

As Two-Bit unlocked the passenger-side door I stared back the way we'd come. There was graffiti scrawled across the back door of the shop. I didn't recognize the writing.

"Hey Two-Bit, didn't this use to be a hardware store?"

"Yeah, it did."

I had a sudden thought, "Same one you lifted your old switchblade from?" He'd lost that blade ten years ago, when Dally died.

Two-Bit smiled kind of a sad smile, "Naw. Different store, Pony."

"Oh." It was getting darker, or the streetlamp was going out.

Then I heard Two-Bit say, "Sit down, Ponyboy." It was like I was hearing him through a tunnel.

"What?" I said, or tried to, anyway. I don't think more than the 'W' got past my lips.

"I said, sit down."

I sat down like I was told. My legs collapsed beneath me like a folding chair, dropping me right onto the pavement. Two-Bit helped me into the passenger seat of the Pontiac. Suddenly I felt sick and shivery, like someone had just dumped a glass of ice water over my head.

"Put your head between you knees."

I did what he told me. After a few seconds I tried to straighten up, but Two-bit put his hand on the back of my head. "No, keep it there. Breathe deep."

I did that too. After a while Two-Bit said, "Sherri used to have fainting spells when she was pregnant… both times. She'd get real pale and glassy-eyed and then she'd just drop. It got to where I could see 'em coming. Hell, that was how I knew, the second time…Now, just take your time. I ain't goin' nowhere."

I didn't feel ready to sit up for a while. Two-Bit waited calmly. It surprise me how much patience he had.

I sat up real slow and leaned back against the passenger seat. Two-Bit shut the door and came around. He got into the driver's side and started the car up.

"What kind of trouble are you in, Ponyboy?"

The question caught me off-guard, but it didn't surprise me. His voice wasn't exactly cold, but very serious, the kind of tone that said he would know it if I lied. Right then he was Keith Mathews, a father and a businessman.

"Well, I ain't pregnant." I said.

Two-Bit gave a snort of laughter.

Then I said, more serious. "It's not drugs, if that's what you're thinking. I haven't touched the stuff in years, so don't be thinkin' I'm some junkie." My voice got louder towards the end, defensive.

"Okay," said Two-Bit. "I believe you, Pony. I never knew you to be a liar even when you were stuffin' that junk up your nose."

That's the great thing about Two-Bit: he doesn't argue. If you tell him something's so, he trusts you until he finds out different. With Darry it was always a fight.

"Sorry," I said, and I was.

I'd never really talked about the drugs before, not with Two-Bit or anyone else. Darry had been livid when he'd found out. I took some bad stuff at a party one night and he had to come and get me. He'd carried me out of there because I couldn't walk on my own. I hadn't touched anything illegal after that, but not because of Darry. I quit because of Soda.

"I got on the wrong end of a story," I told Two-Bit.

Two-Bit frowned. "What d'you mean?"

I pulled up my shirt.

"Christ almighty…Pony, you're bleeding!"

He was right. There was a wet patch in the center of a dried black crust on the bandage. I leaned back in the seat, still dizzy.

"I'm taking you to a doctor." Two-Bit put the Pontiac in gear and the tires squealed against the pavement as we pulled out of the parking lot. I tried to argue but Two-Bit wouldn't stop. I didn't have much energy left besides.

In the waiting room at the hospital Two-Bit called his wife while a nurse changed my bandages and took my blood pressure. I had told him most of what had happened on the drive over. The emergency room was pretty empty that night. When we first came in the duty nurse gave me a funny look and almost rolled her eyes. They saw a lot of drug addicts here, Two-Bit said. I guess she figured me for one, not that I could blame her. I'd been sleeping in my clothes for two days and I hadn't combed my hair in at least that long.

When the doc came in he asked me which doctor I'd seen in Chicago, then he asked me about my meds. When I pulled out the plastic bottle of antibiotics he gave me a sideways look.

"And how many have you taken?"

I froze up. I hadn't taken any. "I forgot," I replied dumbly.

I expected a sigh or a scolding or something, but the doctor just nodded and called for a nurse. He told her to bring him some kind of drug.

"Ponyboy, I'm going to give you an injection-"

"Of what?" Isn't that the craziest thing? I get stabbed in the chest and I'm afraid of a little bitty needle.

"Antibiotics. You're running a fever. It looks like your wound is becoming infected. You need rest and you need to continue taking your medications. Now, I'd like to keep you overnight for observation-"

"No," I shook my head.

"Alright," he said calmly, spreading his hands. "It's your choice, but I strongly advise against it. If you don't want to stay, then I want you to check in with your personal physician as soon as you can." The doctor pulled a pad of paper and a pen out of his white coat. "What's your doctor's name?"

"Uhm, it's been a while since I've seen a doctor…regularly, I mean." Mom and Dad used to take me to the doctor when I was a kid, but that was a long time ago. I don't think I've seen the same doctor twice since then.

"Alright, then I'm going to refer you to someone." He wrote out a name and phone number. Instead of handing it to me, like I expected him to, he folded it once and stuck it in his coat pocket. I didn't understand it then, but I got it when I saw him hand it to Two-Bit out in the hall. "Mr. Mathews, make sure he gets in to see Dr. Stoddard in the next few days."

"Sure thing, Doc," Two-Bit replied.

I was slumped in a waiting room chair, rubbing my shoulder from the shot, looking from one to the other. I was too wiped out to be annoyed. I felt like my nerves were sort of…humming. You know that feeling when you're way past tired and your body slips into autopilot mode? Where you're too keyed up to sleep and you're not really hungry or thirsty or feeling much of anything. That's where I was at.

The doctor had replaced two of the stitches in my chest that were starting to come loose. He'd given me something else, for the pain he said. It felt more like a sedative, but maybe it was just me.

"You know him?" I asked Two-Bit. The doctor was kind of young. Older than Two-Bit, older than me, but he couldn't have been forty yet. He looked kind of familiar.

"Remember Marcia? Couple years older than you, dark hair…"

I tried to, but I couldn't place the name. I shook my head.

"Cherry's friend; the one we met at the drive-in. That there's her brother."

"Oh," was all I said. I hadn't thought about Marcia or Cherry in years. I knew that they had gone off to college after high school to some big fancy schools on the east coast, ones I'd never heard of. It's crazy. You think high school is your whole world when you're in it, but when it's over life just keeps on going. The same people you knew back then keep cropping up: socs, greasers, all kinds of people you never expected to hear from again. It's a damn small world.

I hadn't thought in terms of socs and greasers in a long time. Things started happening a lot quicker after high school. Work, bills, money…life was too busy to think about who drove what kind of car and whether or not someone bought their clothes at a thrift store or a shopping mall. All that stuff faded into the background.

Then there was the Vietnam War, the great equalizer. The war didn't care who your parents were or what social clubs they belonged to. It didn't care if you were a low-life drug-dealing hood or a straight-A student and a pillar of society. It didn't care if you had a family. It didn't care if you were funny and popular and handsome. Nothing you'd ever done in your whole life made a bit of difference to a bullet. All of a sudden everybody had a lot more in common when those military officers started knocking on doors.

My eyes started to sting and I knew I couldn't think about that anymore. When I get tired I get kind of emotional.

The doctor had gone to write out a prescription for pain pills (he made me promise I wouldn't throw this one away). That left Two-Bit and me in the waiting room.

Two-Bit sat down beside me, heaving a sigh. He looked tired. He'd probably been on his feet all day. I suddenly saw him as Marcia's brother must have. He wasn't eighteen and a hood anymore. There he was in a corduroy jacket, buttoned-down shirt and pleated slacks. Mustaches were popular then and Two-Bit's was red, like his sideburns. I hadn't noticed the lines on his forehead before, or the ones at the corners of his eyes and mouth. He looked tired and heavy, not just from the extra weight but like gravity had more of an effect on him now. I felt the same way myself even though I was real skinny. Like when people talk about the weight of the world. I think that was when I really understood what they meant.

"I'm sorry about all this, Two-Bit. You should be home with your wife and your kids, not here babysittin' me."

"No you just shut up about that, Ponyboy," Two-Bit said firmly, almost angrily. "You're as much family to me as Sherri and the girls. You don't need to be apologizin' for nothin'. Hell, Sherri's at home fixin' up the couch for you right now."

I had a sudden chill when Two-Bit mentioned family. "I should call Darry," I said. I hadn't talked to him. He didn't even know I was coming. I felt sort of panicked, too, because I hadn't really considered that I would have to see to Darry again. I hadn't thought about what I would say to him. I hadn't been thinking. I'd just been running on autopilot. Just like Darry says, I don't ever use my head.

I didn't realize that I'd spoken out loud until Two-Bit said, "Don't get mad, Ponyboy, but I saved you the trouble. I called him while you were in with the doc. I couldn't just sit around while Darry's kid brother was in the hospital and not tell him, you dig?"

"What did he say?" I was almost afraid to ask.

"He's comin' down to meet us," Two-Bit glanced at his wristwatch, "…should be here in about ten minutes. Think you can hold on that long?"

"Yeah," I said. "How did he sound?"

Two-Bit shrugged. "Pissed, worried," Like Darry usually sounds, Two-Bit left that last part unspoken. "If you want to come home with me, you can. I can just tell Darry you didn't feel up to waiting."

"No, it's okay. I'll wait." No matter how tempting Two-Bit's offer was, I knew I couldn't take him up on it.

The doctor came back with my prescription and Two-Bit went down the hall to fill it, leaving me in the emergency room alone. I leaned my head back and must have dozed off. The next thing I knew someone was having a conversation real close to me. They were trying to be quiet about it, I could tell, but my eyes opened when I heard my name.

"…gave him something for the pain." Two-bit was saying. "He's pretty worn out."

Darry was there, standing next to Two-Bit with his hands in his pockets. He was wearing faded blue jeans and a black t-shirt, which was tight enough to show that his build was just as good at thirty as it had been at twenty. Time had only touched Darry around his icy blue-green eyes and around his mouth, where lines had begun to settle into his handsome face. His hair was short and neat without a trace of gray and his jaw was clean-shaven. He looked more and more like Dad every year.

Darry saw that I was awake. When he looked at me the most horrible expression came over his face. It was worry and anger and…accusation. He looked as if he'd like nothing better than to read me the riot act.

Suddenly I regretted coming here at all. I knew I would have to face Darry, but Darry had been just a shadow when I thought of him. Now he was real and solid and right in front of me. Oh, God, I thought, I can't do this. I can't deal with Darry right now on top of everything. I can't deal with him telling me how I screwed up. I can't deal with him without Soda…

Darry took a deep breath and started towards me but Two-Bit put a hand on his shoulder. They were standing about ten or fifteen feet from me, so I couldn't hear what it was that Two-Bit whispered to Darry right then. Darry's posture changed a little. He approached me slowly.

My eyes were watering. I swiped at them with the back of my hand. "Darry, I-" I started to say.

Darry stopped me. "I don't want to hear it. Not right now."

Darry turned back to Two-Bit, who was holding two little pill bottles in his outstretched hand. Darry put them in his pocket and crouched down in front of me. "C'mon, let's get you home." He put his hand around my upper arm and stood me up, surprisingly gentle.

The three of us left through the emergency room doors. I felt like I was sort of floating along, leaning on Darry, and I knew it was because of the pain pills. That sick, almost-nauseous feeling was returning and the pain from the knife-wound fled. I felt so bad I almost wanted to cry.

Once we were outside Two-Bit fetched my gym bag out of his car and handed it to Darry. He clapped me on the shoulder and gave me a friendly smile. "Take care of yourself, Pony. And don't be a stranger, either. Darry, that goes for you too. I'll call the house tomorrow."

"Thanks, Keith," Darry said. "I mean it."

"Ain't no trouble. You boys get some sleep." Two-Bit got into his car, then stood up and called after us, "And Darry, get some food in him."

There were roofing supplies in the back of Darry's truck. He tossed my gym bag on top of a stack of shingles and unlocked the passenger door for me.

I don't remember most of the ride home. I slept against the window, watching old-familiar patterns of porch lights pass by. As I drifted off I thought I felt a warm hand on my forehead, brushing my hair back. I might have imagined that part, though.

Continued in Chapter 4...


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

I woke up on the sofa in our house. Darry was sitting across from me in Dad's old armchair. The shades were all closed. I could see little motes of dust dancing in the thin shafts of light that the drapes couldn't completely block out.

Darry must have pulled off my shoes and tossed a blanket over me. I couldn't remember. When he saw that I was awake he set down the newspaper he was reading and folded it with careful, deliberate movements.

"What time is it?" I asked. My voice was rough.

Darry looked at his watch. "About ten or so. You want something to drink?" he asked. It sounded like he was forcing himself to go easy on me.

"Coffee, if you've got it," I croaked, knowing damn well I wasn't going to get it.

Darry stood and went into the kitchen. Sure enough, he came back with a bottle of orange juice and a glass.

I sat up slowly. My hand shook so bad when I took the glass that I almost dropped it.

Darry just looked at me and kept quiet. We'd barely spoken to each other in the last five years. Sure, he called on Christmas and I would send him letters every few months, but we hadn't been close in a long time.

When I'd finished that first glass of juice Darry poured me a second one. I used that time to have a look around the room. There was a shelf over the fireplace. It was lined with pictures, some of which I'd never seen before or hadn't seen since high school. Some were of people I didn't recognize. They must have been friends of Darry's. A few of the pictures stood out from the rest:

There was a black-and-white photo of the whole family, taken the summer before Mom and Dad died. Darry looked so much like Dad that it could have been him standing next to Mom. Soda was sitting in the front, mouth open in a happy yell with one arm thrown around me. I remember that he'd done that at the last second. The photographer had been pretty mad, but Mom and Dad didn't seem to mind. Dad said it was the best picture we'd ever taken.

Next there was a picture of the old gang: Me, Soda, Steve, Two-Bit, Dally and Johnny. Darry wasn't in the picture. That was because he'd taken it. I had my arms crossed in front of me, scowling. Soda had a cigarette behind his ear and his sleeves were rolled up to show off his biceps. Two-Bit and Steve were wearing cocky half-smiles, the kind that say, 'Go on, try to mess with us.' Two-bit was cleaning his nails with his switch. We were all trying to look tough. Now, I thought, we just looked young and sort of naïve, especially Johnny, who almost faded into the background he was so unassuming. The exception to the rule was Dally. He always scared me when I was a kid. Even now his icy stare gave me the chills.

I tried to imagine Dally alive now and I just couldn't. I think that he would have found a way to die no matter what. If it hadn't been the cops that night, then it would have been some drunk at a bar with a knife in his boot, or a shopkeeper with a gun. It would have been something. Some people burn bright for a short time and then fade out. Dally was never meant to grow old.

My eyes were drawn to one picture in particular. It was a color photo and the wooden frame it was in looked new. In it there was a young woman with long dark hair and dark eyes. She was wearing a soft pink sweater and a softer smile and holding a girl in her arms. The girl was about six years old or so. She looked just like the woman in miniature, with the same hair and big doe eyes.

"Is that Cynthia?" I asked Darry, nodding at the picture.

It was worth it to see the look of surprise on Darry's face. He doesn't surprise easy. "Did Keith tell you about her?"

"Yeah. And the little girl. What's her name?"

"Rachel."

"She's real pretty. Cynthia, I mean. Well, they're both pretty. Rachel looks just like her momma."

Darry looked kind of proud and embarrassed at the same time. He smiled and looked down at his hands.

"When did you start calling Two-Bit by his real name?" I asked.

"A long time ago. You gonna finish that juice or do you just like holdin' it?"

I scowled at him but took a drink. Darry had my prescriptions out on the coffee table. One I was supposed to take on an empty stomach, the other one with food. The first pill was so big it almost stuck in my throat.

I saw another photograph. This one wasn't on the shelf with the others, but off to the side, hung on the wall in a silver frame. It was a picture of our brother Sodapop in his army uniform. He was nineteen years old in the photo. His hair was cut short in a military buzz and his army cap sat slightly off-center on his head. He looked very handsome, almost heroic. He didn't look anything like me.

"Darry?" I heard myself ask.

"Yeah, Pony, what is it?"

The words stuck in my throat and my courage dried up. I shook my head. "Nothing."

Darry was frowning. "What's going on with you, Ponyboy?"

Boy, was that a loaded question.

"How much did Tw- Keith tell you?" Two-Bit's real name felt funny to say.

"He said you got hurt, that you were in the hospital. Told me you got on the wrong end of a knife. You want to tell me about it?"

Darry was wearing an expression that was part-worried, part-angry. It seemed like Darry was almost always part-angry. Out of all the people I'd ever known, he scared me the worst. I think he scared me because out of all the people I knew, he knew me the best, and what he thought about me mattered. I'd tried hard to pretend that it didn't, but it did.

I was having trouble talking. The truth is: I was still so shook up that I felt like I wouldn't be able to finish a sentence without my voice breaking.

"Are you in some kind of trouble, Pony?"

I had to look away while I lied: "No, I ain't in any trouble."

An awkward silence stretched between us. Darry's no dummy. I knew he didn't believe me. The next words out of Darry's mouth must have been some of the hardest words he'd ever had to say.

"We haven't talked in a while, Ponyboy," he said slowly. "That ain't all your fault. It's my fault too, but I'd like it if we could talk."

My eyes were stinging. I still couldn't look at him. "Sure, Darry. But could we maybe eat something first? I'm about starved."

Darry looked kind of ashamed right then. I guess I did look pretty bad. Darry sent me into the bathroom to take a shower while he fried up some bacon and eggs and made toast. The doctor had said I could take a shower, but to be careful around the stitches. I only bled a little bit, and I was able to change the bandages without help.

I hadn't seen a mirror in a while and I was surprised to find that I had about a quarter-inch growth of beard on my jaw. I hadn't packed a razor, so I borrowed Darry's. A lot of guys these days were wearing mustaches, like Two-Bit's, or beards. I still kept my face clean-shaven when I could. I'd tried to grow a beard once, but it came in redder than my hair. I didn't like it, so I'd been clean-shaven ever since.

Once I was showered and the beard was gone I didn't look quite so scraggly, just pale and skinny. I'd lost a notch on my belt and I could see my ribs, even the ones right below my collar bones. I felt weak as a kitten.

I dressed in the bathroom, choosing a long-sleeved button-up shirt and a pair of corduroy pants. The shirt was pretty wrinkled but I was too cold to care. I put a couple of t-shirts on underneath it.

Darry was just about done making breakfast when I came into the kitchen. I got out two plates and a couple for forks and knives and set the table. Darry had already poured himself a cup of coffee and I brought my glass in from the living room. Coffee wasn't sounding so good anymore, and if you want to know the truth, I was feeling pretty light-headed from my shower.

I slumped down at the small kitchen table, resting my head on my fist. I was feeling more together now, and I was noticing things more, like the house. The furniture had been moved around, and although the armchair was the same one that Dad had bought when he was still alive, the couch I'd been sleeping on was new. So was the tile in the kitchen.

Darry had always been kind of a neat freak, at least compared to me and Soda, so when I saw stacks of books and papers in the hallway I was kind of surprised. I'd poked my head into the spare room, the one that Soda and I used to share, and found out it was empty. There was a bucket and roller in one corner and plastic on the floor. The room smelled like fresh paint. When I saw that empty room I felt a stab of something in my gut. I felt sort of hurt and angry. My first thought was that Darry should have asked me first. Then I realized how childish that was. This house wasn't mine. It was Darry's home, and it wasn't like he was tearing the place down. He was trying to get on with his own life, just like Two-Bit had.

"Darry?" I asked as he dished up the eggs. "Tell me about Cynthia. What's she like?"

Darry's ears got red and he looked uncomfortable. "Pony- I, uh…Well, she's…" he made some motions with his hands, like he couldn't quite get the words out. At first I didn't understand why he was having such a hard time talking, and then I realized what he thought I was asking.

"Oh. Glory, not that! That's not what I meant! I mean, what does she do for a living? Is she from around here?" My ears got red too. I buried my face in my hands. "God Almighty, Darry! I wouldn't ask you that!"

"Oh," was all he said.

We were quiet more a minute, then we both burst out laughing. I realize I'm not as crude as most guys. That's all some guys care about when it comes to women. I've always been sort of naïve about girls that way. I mean, sure I think about that kind of stuff. What guy doesn't? But I wouldn't ask about it, especially not Darry.

Finally we both recovered enough breath to talk. Darry took a sip of his coffee and choked on it a little. He started telling me about Cynthia.

Cynthia was a schoolteacher, like Two-Bit had said. She taught second grade at Lindbergh Elementary. She was from Michigan originally, but had moved to Tulsa with her folks when she was seventeen. Darry liked her accent, which didn't have a bit of the south in it. She liked bowling and playing softball and drive-in movies.

Last summer Cynthia's parents had been clients of Darry's. That was how they'd met. They became friends first. It turned out that she and Darry knew some of the same people even though she'd gone to a different high school. She'd even been married to one of Darry's skiing buddies, Vince Carter. Vince had died in the war. Afterward she'd moved back in with her folks so that they could help her take care of her little girl, who had been just a baby at the time.

Darry wasn't sure when he and Cynthia had become more than friends, but he thought that her parents had encouraged it. They liked him. I could see why. Darry was solid, responsible, a hard-worker. He wouldn't ever disrespect Cynthia or Rachel, or leave if things got too rough. He knew what tough times were. They probably wanted Rachel to have a father figure in her life, somebody like Darry.

I thought about that. Darry'd already had the experience of raising me and Soda by himself after Mom and Dad died. One little girl had to be a lot less trouble. Sure, Darry and I didn't get each other, but he'd done the best he could. Now that I was older I could appreciate that. Darry had been twenty years old when he took custody of me and Soda, four years younger than I was now, and I still didn't feel like I could take care of a house plant, let alone a kid.

I picked at my breakfast while Darry and I talked. I'd taken the painkiller and it seemed like the only thing it had killed was my appetite. I knew better than to waste food, so I tried just eating slowly. Darry was on his third cup of coffee before I finally pushed my plate back and gave up.

"You doin' okay, Pony?" Darry asked. "You look kind of pale."

I managed a weak nod. "Just wiped out. I hate these drugs."

The word "drugs" hung awkwardly between us for a second. Darry opened his mouth and then shut it quickly. He looked down into his cup of coffee like all the answers were in there somewhere. We hadn't talked about the drugs, not ever...

Continued in Chapter 5...


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

I had some problems in high school. It started way back when Mom and Dad died. That's when Darry and I started fighting. Then Johnny killed that soc, Bob Sheldon, and we ran away to Windrixville with the help of Dallas Winston, Dally. Johnny didn't live long after that. He broke his back rescuing some little kids when the church we were hiding in burned to the ground. The same night that Johnny died Dally knocked over a grocery store and the cops shot Dally dead.

That's a lot to handle for anybody, and really a lot to handle if you're a fourteen-year-old kid. I messed up in school and almost flunked out that first year after it all happened. Darry hollered at me a lot back then. He did it because he didn't know what else to do. That was how Soda explained it. Soda was real good at keeping the peace between me and Darry. We knew that the two of us fighting so much was tough on him, with Soda caught in the middle, so we tried our best to lay off each other.

For a while things were okay. Then when I was sixteen Soda got drafted. With Soda gone Darry and I fought all the time, about everything. Things got real bad during my senior year in high school. The country was in the middle of a drug revolution. Dope was all over the place, and as easy to get as water out of a drinking fountain. I'm not even sure how I got started. I think I did it just to make Darry mad, and it worked. I look back now and I can't believe the kid who did all that stuff was me.

When I started taking dope I also started getting into more trouble than I usually do. I picked fights at school, stayed out all night and even came to school drunk once or twice. I was on dope a lot less than I let on, really, but I got the reaction I wanted. I turned eighteen and Darry didn't argue when I told him I was moving out. I got a place by myself, a dirty little one-room apartment with a mattress on the floor and a couple of crates for bookshelves. I still loved to read.

If I'd known what was about to happen I never would have gotten into dope in the first place. There are a lot of things I wish I'd done differently. But you can't change the past. It's hard enough just to live with it.

One day, out of the blue, Darry showed up at my apartment. It was a little after six in the evening. That night we had the worst fight we'd ever had. Not just with words but fists too, mostly mine. Darry had always been bigger and stronger than me. He could have knocked me senseless if he had wanted too. I'm surprised he didn't, the way I was carrying on.

When I think back now, I should have known that something was wrong from the minute I opened the door. Darry was the kind of guy who looked you straight in the eye and said what he wanted to say. That night he kept his eyes on the floor. I remember that he was still wearing his work clothes: a white t-shirt and jeans with tar stains and dirty brown work boots. I wasn't really seeing all of that, though. I just remember him looking at me, and that I jumped down his throat before he even opened his mouth. I don't remember what all I said or what he said. At some point I took a swing and my fist connected. Things happened pretty quickly after that. The fight ended with Darry pinning me to the floor with all his weight while I slugged him in the ribs.

While I was pinned there Darry told me what he really came to tell me. He had to repeat it several times at a shout before I heard him. Then he had to say it several more times quietly before I believed him.

Soda was dead. A uniformed Army lieutenant had been waiting on our doorstep when Darry had gotten home from work. Soda had been killed in action. I would never see him again.

If words could make a person's heart stop beating I think I would have died right there. That was the worst moment of my entire life. I wished right then that I was dead, because I didn't know how I was going to get by without Soda.

Darry must have had some spectacular bruises the next few days, because I kept hitting him until I didn't have any strength left. I was crying by then, and I felt like a wrung-out dishrag. Darry brought me home. I guess he didn't think I should be alone. Maybe he didn't want to be alone either.

I slept in Soda's and my old room. I cried all night. In the morning I did a line of cocaine off the toilet seat in our bathroom. I think Darry knew about it, but he didn't say anything.

The world seemed to get a lot darker after that, like the sun had suddenly gotten colder. After Soda died I just…shut down. I walked through the next few weeks in a daze. I'd been doing badly in several classes. Somehow I pulled myself together enough to make it through high school. I didn't attend graduation.

I did attend Soda's funeral, but I had to be stoned to do it. That pissed Darry off, and he didn't speak to me for a month.

That summer between high school and college was the longest summer of my life. I pushed away everyone and everything that I loved. That wasn't hard. Soda was dead and Darry didn't want to have anything to do with me. Steve was still overseas fighting in the war. Two-Bit had a new wife that he was struggling to support. I felt like I could only talk to the rest of my friends when I was drunk or high. That was okay, because the ones that I did see were drunk or high too.

After Soda died I picked fights with anyone who looked at me sideways. I already had a reputation for being a good man in a fight, but now I had a rep as a brawler too. I still went to work, most of the time (I'd gotten a job at the DX when I was seventeen, the same one that Soda and Steve worked at), but I started steeling hubcaps and car stereos to support my habit. I was high most days of the week. Now, I think of the kid who did all of that and he wasn't me. I don't know who he was, but I hope I never see him again.

I couldn't keep going like that. Something had to give, and at the end of July, on a Saturday night, it finally did.

I was at a party with a bunch of people I barely knew, and one of Curly Shepard's friends handed me three round white pills. I didn't know what the pills were, but I would try anything back then. Maybe it was bad stuff or maybe I took too much, because the next thing I remembered was lying on the kitchen floor with a ring of people around me. Somebody was slapping my face and saying "Pony, you in there? Jesus, what the hell did you give him?" A girl's voice asked "Is he dying?" and someone else said, "We ain't callin' no ambulance. They'll tell the cops!"

I couldn't breathe. My throat was closing up. I kept fading in and out. Every time I opened my eyes people had shifted around me. Someone finally lifted me up and carried me out of there, into the cool night air, and drove me to the hospital. I knew it was Darry because I could hear him hollering at me the whole time. I think he was crying too.

The doctors at the hospital pumped my stomach, and let me tell you, you don't know the meaning of the word 'miserable' until you've had that done to you. It's worse than throwing up and worse than dry heaves. Someone else is doing it to you and you don't know when it's going to end. I remember just laying on that table in the E.R. with that tube down my throat and tears streaming down my face, feeling like my insides were being sucked out.

While they were working on me I looked over, and through the glass windows that separated the E.R. from the waiting area I could see Darry staring back at me. His mouth was open a little and his eyes were red. He didn't look angry, just real sad and worried. Right then I thought that he didn't just look like Dad, but Mom too, and Soda, which was something I'd never noticed before. Darry was all the family I had left.

I found out later that Angela Shepard had called Darry from the party. Angela is Curly's sister. We'd never been friends. She was real pretty alright, but I think I did something to rub her the wrong way back when we were freshmen. I thought she hated me, but I guess not enough to watch me overdose. I guess she asked if she could ride along to the hospital and Darry told her where to go. It was her brother's friend who gave me the stuff. I didn't hear from Angela again after that.

I lay there on the emergency room table, looking at Darry, and just wanted to die, really wanted to die, maybe even more than when I'd heard Soda had been killed.

I didn't die though. I woke up in the hospital feeling just as awful as I had when they'd been pumping my stomach. Darry visited, but I pretended to be asleep. He didn't say anything. He just sat for a while. Maybe I did doze, because I swore that I could still feel him looking at me, but when I opened my eyes he was gone. I slept and I ate. I felt a little better, like I was coming back to life, or waking up from a long illness. Later that day I checked myself out of the hospital and I went home.

I flushed my stash. I did it quickly, before I could talk myself out of it, then I sat on the bathroom floor shaking like a leaf. I knew all along that the drugs hadn't been making me feel better; they'd been making me feel nothing, just zero. Soda deserved better than for his brother to be trying to erase him with a bunch of pills.

Withdrawal was rough. I hadn't realized I was so hooked on that stuff. I smoked through about five packs of Camels a day. I spent a lot of time in bed. I missed a lot of work and I'm still amazed I didn't lose my job at the DX. To this day I still believe I only caught a break from the owner because I was Soda's kid brother.

I kept sitting at home in bed, waiting for Darry to call and chew me out or show up to knock my head against the wall. He never showed up. He didn't call. I'd finally pushed Darry away…and I hated myself for it.

In the fall I started working my way through college. I didn't go to a university straight out of high school. I could never afford that. I went to community college instead, which I liked just fine. Back then I was either attending classes, studying, or working to pay the bills. That didn't leave a lot of time to think, sleep, or do much of anything. It was good, partly because I didn't have time to think about Soda, and partly because it meant I didn't have to face Darry.

Darry and I eventually started talking again. He'd heard through the grapevine that I'd kicked the dope habit, but he never asked about it. When we talked it was about impersonal stuff, like school, money and work. We talked maybe once a month, then once every two months. By the time I graduated from college and moved to Memphis to write for a small paper out there, we were down to a few phone calls a year. Mostly it was Darry who called me, not the other way around.

I knew that Darry probably saved my life that night that he drove me to the hospital, but I never thanked him for it. I felt like there was a lot to say but no easy way to say it. I had no idea Darry felt the same way until we were sitting across from each other in our old kitchen six years later.

Continued in Chapter 6…


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

"I should go see the guys today…" I said. 'Seeing the guys' meant visiting the cemetery, where Dally, Johnny, Soda and Mom and Dad were all buried. I changed the subject, "Say Darry, shouldn't you be at work already?"

"Naw, my guys can handle themselves for a while. Listen, Pony, why don't you just stay in today? I'm workin' on your old room, so you can take my bed."

"Naw, the couch is just fine. I'll be outta your way by tomorrow." I didn't know where I'd go but I was still having second thoughts about coming here. "You should be at work. I can look after myself. Go on, Darry. I'll be fine."

Darry frowned, but stood up and rinsed out his coffee cup. His tool belt was on a hook by the front door. He buckled it on. "We'll talk some more when I get home. You rest today, hear?"

I nodded, but I couldn't look him in the eye. If I did I was worried that he'd see right through me.

Darry opened the front door to leave. I thought he wasn't going to say anything else, but then he turned and asked, "Pony, why'd you come back?"

I thought back to the alley. I thought about how I'd been lying there, bleeding to death, thinking of Darry and how angry he would be with me.

It was a long time before Darry realized that I wasn't going to answer. "I'll be home at six thirty," he said finally. "You get some sleep. Don't go runnin' all over town."

I didn't look up. I heard the door close and Darry's retreating footfalls down the porch steps. There was a low rumble as Darry started up his truck and drove away.

I sat for a while at that table, just staring at the surface, wondering why I was so messed up in the head. I blamed it on the drugs again, but didn't really believe it.

After a while I stood up and scraped the rest of my food into the garbage. I washed the dishes and put them away. The kitchen was the same. Everything was where I remembered it. Darry was even still using the same brand of dish soap.

I did sleep, just like Darry told me to, but on the couch. I think I could have fallen asleep on the kitchen floor if that had been my only option.

At about four o'clock the phone woke me up. It was Two-Bit. He asked how I was feeling and how everything was going with Darry.

A long time ago I used to only talk to Johnny about sunsets and stuff like that. I used to talk to Soda a lot too, about other stuff. Johnny and Soda were gone now, but over the years Two-Bit had gotten a lot easier to talk to. He'd always been pretty easy-going and funny, but now he talked less and listened more. I think maybe it had to do with living in a house full of girls. You have to know how to listen to girls.

"I don't know what to say to him," I told Two-Bit.

"Start anywhere. You and Darry have a lot of ground to cover," Two-Bit explained.

"What're you talking about?" I was feeling sort of dim.

"Pony, for somebody who's so smart, you sure can be dense sometimes, Darry too. I'd really like to knock your heads together."

"Now you sound like Darry."

"I can think of worse people to sound like." Two-Bit said. Then, "He talks about you all the time. You know he saved every article you ever wrote?"

"What d'you mean?" Boy, I _was_ sounding real smart today.

"After everything you went through, all that stuff with your parents and Soda and the drugs, you still pulled your act together. You still made somethin' outta yourself. You went to college and got a good job. You wrote for that newspaper in Memphis. You got articles published in magazines. You did things that he never got to do. Hell, he's proud of you, Ponyboy."

I was stunned. I hadn't written anything big, just some local human-interest stuff, nothing you'd ever see on the front page of a newspaper or the cover of a magazine.

"I don't…he never said…"

"He wouldn't. He's Darry. He thinks you hate him."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I'd always thought Darry was disappointed in me. Most of the time I thought he hated me.

"I don't hate him," I said dumbly. I was picturing Darry leafing through the newspaper, looking for my name in tiny black print. I pictured him reading the articles that I'd written, cutting them out and saving them in a book. "I don't hate Darry."

"When are you gonna tell him that?"

I was speechless.

"Listen, I've gotta pick up Suzie from daycare tomorrow anyway. I'll take off work early and drive you to the doctor's."

I protested, but Two-Bit wouldn't take 'no' for an answer, "It's clear across town and you ain't hoofin'it and you ain't takin' the bus, neither. And you ain't skippin' out on your appointment so don't even think it."

That was it. I couldn't argue and I didn't have the stamina for it. Two-Bit and I talked about his girls for a little while after that. Eleanor was teething and Susie would be starting kindergarten in a few months.

After a while Two-Bit suggested that I go get some sleep. By then I was answering him in a series of grunts and nods. I was nodding at the handset, for Christ's sake. That's how tired I was.

I didn't go to sleep after hanging up with Two-Bit, though. I was exhausted but restless. I had too much on my mind to be able to sleep.

I took my pills on an empty stomach because I still felt too nauseous to eat. I put my shoes on and I left the house. I didn't have a key, so I left the back door unlocked. I'd be back before Darry got home from work, at least by my own foggy estimation I would be.

The cemetery was about fifteen miles away. I walked most of it. I only hopped on the bus after my knees started to shake. By the time I got there the sun was starting to set. There was a sign posted at the entrance: "Closed After Dark", but there wasn't anyone to enforce the rule except an old groundskeeper who was probably off drinking somewhere. If I had his job I'd drink too.

Mom and Dad were buried side-by-side near a big oak tree in the corner of the cemetery. We didn't have the money for an inscription when Mom and Dad died. They shared a single headstone with the name "Curtis" across the top and their first and middle names beneath it:

_Darrel Shaynne Sr. Susanne Carmen_

_June 12th 1946 - July 19th 1966 March 5th 1947 – July 19th 1966_

I stood over their graves for a while, but didn't say anything. I used to come here and talk to them. I think maybe I'd said everything that I needed to say, out loud at least.

Sometimes I couldn't even remember what they looked like. Darry was a living reminder of Dad, but I could barely see Mom's face in my head anymore. I could still hear her voice perfectly, though. Once I'd come across a lady in Memphis who wore the same perfume that Mom used to wear. When I smelled it Mom came right back, just like I'd seen her yesterday.

Johnny and Dally were buried in different parts of the cemetery. Instead of headstones they had little plaques. Both were modest, with no inscriptions, just names and dates. That's all they were now, just names and dates on cheap little pieces of metal in a cemetery. Anyone who passed by would only know that they were John Cade and Dallas Winston, and that they died young, and that was all. If they had any imagination they might fill in the blanks themselves, picture the boys as heroes or hoodlums, which they were both. But they'd never know the whole story.

One section of the cemetery had a tall flagpole in the center of hundreds of headstones, almost all of them shiny and new. Under it was a white cross and an inscription that I'd read a dozen times but could never remember.

One of the headstones marked Soda's grave, but Soda wasn't buried here. Two of his army buddies had told us so. They were with Soda when he died. One of them was missing his left arm from the elbow down and the other one was missing half his hair. It had been burned away along with half his face.

It had been the guy with the missing arm who told Darry and me about the sand in the casket; one hundred and thirty pounds of sand in exchange for a brother. "They couldn't send you a body because there wasn't one to send," he said. Then he told me, "You look like your brother." I wish he hadn't said that.

The burned guy didn't say anything.

I didn't ask for their names and I didn't ask how Soda died. Maybe one day I'd want to know, but not then and not now.

I thought about Soda coming home like them, missing an arm or a leg or burned and disfigured. I couldn't picture it, my handsome brother with half his face burned away. I had bad dreams about it sometimes, especially after I cleaned up my act.

I knew a lot of guys who fought in that war. Some of them came home and picked their lives up right where they'd left them. Some of them came home scarred on the outside, like Soda's buddies. Some guys came back scarred on the inside, like Steve had.

Steve came back from the war in one piece, but he wasn't Steve anymore. We'd never been buddies. He'd always been Soda's best friend, and thought of me as a tagalong, even when I got older. Steve joined the army the same time that Soda got drafted, hoping that they'd get put in the same unit. They didn't.

I'd already gone off to college when Steve came back from the war. He went back to work at the DX, fixing cars, just like he used to. Two-Bit had gone by the station a few times to see him. He said that Steve was quiet and that he didn't smile or say much. Two-Bit also said he got angry real easy. One of Sherri's friends had gone out with him after he'd been home for a few months. Halfway through the date Steve slapped her after she made some comment about "baby killers" and the war. Two-Bit didn't try to set Steve up with any more dates after that.

I'd only seen Steve once since the war. It was at the cemetery about three years after Soda died. He was visiting Soda's grave. I saw him from a distance, and I barely knew that it was him. I didn't go over and say "hello". Like I said, we'd never been buddies, and now Steve was kind of a stranger to me. I'm not sure if he knew about the sand in the casket, so I didn't tell him. I turned away and let him have some time with his best friend.

Maybe it was the fading light that made all of the headstones look the same or maybe I was just tired. I couldn't find Soda's grave. After about thirty minutes of wandering in circles I was too tired to keep going. My brother wasn't buried here anyway.

When I left the cemetery it was pitch dark. I didn't have a watch, but I knew it was way past six thirty. I hoped that Darry wouldn't be mad that I left the back door unlocked. He used to do that all the time, so that any one of the guys in our gang could have a place to crash if they needed it. But there hadn't been a gang in a long time, and all the people Darry knew probably had a place to go now, everyone except me.

There was a pair of headlights circling the cemetery when I left. I guess I shouldn't have been too surprised when they pulled up right along side me. Darry rolled down the window and called my name.

I climbed in the truck sheepishly. Darry had said I should stay home and rest. I hoped he wouldn't be too mad. He looked a little red.

"I figured you'd be out here. Didn't you bring a coat, Ponyboy?"

"No," My suede jacket had blood on it. I'd thrown it away at the hospital, figuring that the blood would never come out. I only noticed how cold it was outside when the blast of heat from the vent hit me. I tucked my hands up under my arms to warm them up.

"I'm sorry Darry," I said.

"You're grown up now. It ain't like you'll get sent to a boys' home."

"No, I guess not."

Darry put the truck in gear and pulled onto the road. "How's everything up there?"

I shrugged. "Good. I pulled some weeds off Johnny's headstone. I don't think they clean it." It cost extra to have the headstones cleaned. Johnny's parents didn't have that kind of money, and I never saw them out there. Someone was keeping Dally's headstone clean. There had been flowers on his grave too. There were flowers on his grave almost every time I visited. Maybe one day I'd find out who was leaving them.

"I couldn't find Soda's grave," I told Darry. That bugged me. How could I not remember where it was?

"It ain't goin' nowhere, Pony. I'll help you find it later."

I was quiet for a while. I don't know why it bothered me so much, but it did. Darry was right, though. It wasn't going anywhere.

"You eat anything yet?" Darry asked.

I shook my head. For the first time in days I was actually feeling hungry.

"I've got a couple steaks in the freezer. You feel up to peeling potatoes?"

"For a steak I'll peel as many as you want," I said gratefully.

Darry smiled, and then frowned, concerned. "You look awful thin, Ponyboy. Ain't you been eatin'?"

"I eat when I remember," I said absently.

"It's a wonder you remember to breathe," Darry told me sarcastically. He immediately looked sorry, but I was grinning. I'd forgotten that it felt good to be teased by my brother.

"Hey, Darry?"

"Yeah?"

"You ever talk to Steve?"

"Sure. Sometimes. He worked on the truck for me last month. Why?"

"I was just thinkin'. I haven't seen him in a long time."

The rest of the ride home passed in silence. When we got there I peeled potatoes and carrots while Darry cooked up the steaks. I sat down at the table hungry but only finished half of my dinner. Darry knew I wasn't feeling so hot, so he didn't push it.

Continued in Chapter 7…


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

I slept on the couch again that night, mostly because I was so wiped out I couldn't have made it the extra few feet to the back bedroom. When I woke up there was a note from Darry telling me he'd had to go to work early. One of his guys had called in sick.

Two-Bit came by at about two o'clock to take me to the doctor's office. He wasn't alone. Susie was riding in the back seat reading a colorful book about farm animals, or at least looking at the pictures. She grinned when she saw me and jumped out of the back seat to give me a hug. She looked so much like Two-Bit that it was scary.

"Uncle Pony!"

She loved my name.

"If it ain't my favorite redhead!" I said. The last time I'd seen her was about a year and a half ago. In kid years, that was forever. I was surprised she remembered me. "Watcha readin' about?"

"Cows," she said, showing me book. It was open to a page with two black and white cows grazing on a hillside.

"Those are special cows." Two-Bit said, hoisting Suzie into the air, "Two of their legs are shorter, so that they can stand on hills."

"Really?" Suzie asked.

"Yup, really," he said, buckling her back into her seat.

I grimaced. You have to be careful what you tell kids. They believe everything. When I was little Darry and Soda convinced me that Alaska was an island. They even showed me a map to prove it. On the map Alaska was in its own box in the corner. I thought it was weird that Alaska had one really straight coastline.

Two-Bit's kids were going to be pretty confused by the time they got to kindergarten.

Doctor Stoddard was a lady doctor it turned out, and young, too. She was older than me, but not by more than ten or twelve years. I'd seen so many doctors in the last week I guess the odds were that I would get a lady doctor eventually.

Doctor Stoddard was so nice that she made me feel guilty about not taking my pills on time or in the right order. She explained what might happen if I didn't take them. That left me with a pretty vivid mental picture. It was enough to make me promise not to forget again.

She said she wasn't happy with my weight either. I'm not that tall, but I still should have weighed at least one hundred thirty pounds. I was hovering around one-twenty and she told me I was anemic, too. That was bad for the healing process. I mentioned how the painkillers made me nauseous. As she walked me back to the waiting room she wrote me out a new prescription.

"This is a milder drug. It shouldn't have the same effect. Call me in a few days if you're feeling any pain or your symptoms persist."

"I think you should call her anyway," Two-Bit said a little too loudly as we left, "Especially if you're feelin' better."

I turned beet-red and didn't dare turn around, just in case Dr. Stoddard was still standing there.

She was pretty, though…

During the ride home Suzie tried to climb all over me. I didn't mind too much, until she kneed me in the chest, then Two-Bit shooed her off. I could tell she felt bad for hurting me. I offered to buy her a sucker when we stopped at the pharmacy.

The pharmacy was part of a larger drug store and it had all kinds of candy and about ten or twelve flavors of suckers. Like most little kids, Suzie couldn't make up her mind on the flavor. She treated choosing a sucker like it was the most important decision she would ever make in her life. I hoped that it would be a long time before she ever found out any different.

Two-Bit stepped outside for a cigarette while I watched Suzie do eenie-meanie-miney-moe on a fist full of brightly-colored candy. There were three or four people already waiting for their prescriptions. The pharmacist had told me it might be ten or fifteen minutes before he called my name. I wasn't in any hurry, and said so.

Susie had narrowed her choices down to three flavors: cherry, lemon and orange, when I noticed someone walking towards us from the back of the pharmacy.

"Steve?"

To this day I don't know what it was that tipped me off. He didn't look a whole lot like the Steve that I used to know. Steve's hair was long. It fell down to his shoulders in waves. He was wearing a mustache now, like Two-Bit, and he was thin, like me, with dark circles under haunted-looking eyes. His shoulders were hunched, like he was cold. Despite the mild weather he wore an olive drab army jacket over gray coveralls that were stained with oil and grease.

Steve looked surprised for a second when I said his name, almost like he was scared. He sort of stared at me wide-eyed, and then said "Ponyboy?"

"Yeah, man."

Steve's hands were shoved in his pockets. He took one out to shake my hand. Maybe he _was_ cold. His fingers were like ice.

"Darry said you moved outta town."

"Yeah, Chicago."

"He said you were workin' for some newspaper out there."

"I was- I am…It's a long story." I rubbed my eyes. On top of everything I was starting to get a headache. "You still at the DX?"

"Yeah. I run the garage now."

It was tough to look Steve in the eye. I think I saw something there that scared me. I think I saw myself.

"Curtis," the pharmacist called out.

"That's me," I said.

"Hey, well, I gotta get back to the shop," Steve said, backing nervously away, "good to see you again."

"Yeah, Steve, good to see you too," I said, even though it wasn't.

When he walked past me I saw the unmistakable outline of a carton of cigarettes under his jacket.

Steve walked out of pharmacy and disappeared around the corner. All the while Suzie had been oblivious to the two adults having a conversation over her head. She'd finally picked out a sucker. It looked like grape.

I paid for Suzie's sucker and my prescription and found Two-Bit in the parking lot. He lit a cigarette for me and then pounded me on the back when I started coughing my brains out. I hadn't had a cigarette in almost a week and the smoke tasted a lot stronger to me.

When I had enough breath to talk I told Two-Bit about Steve.

"Sounds about right," he said. Two-Bit hadn't seen Steve leave the store. "He probably saw me and went the other way."

Two-Bit explained that Steve was like that nowadays, that he mostly kept to himself. The only people he really talked to anymore were Two-Bit and Darry. He still shoplifted, even though he could afford everything he stole. It made me feel kind of strange. I mean, I used to steal stuff all the time, mostly for kicks when I was a teenager, then to support my drug habit. Now it just seemed kind of a juvenile thing to do.

"I know the guy who runs the pharmacy," Two-Bit said. That didn't surprise me. Two-Bit was pretty social. He knew a lot of people. "Jack knows that Steve takes stuff from his store."

"He's okay with it?"

Two-Bit opened the back door of the Pontiac and let Suzie climb in.

"Jack's kid died in Vietnam," he told me. "It'll be a cold day in hell before he ever calls the cops on Steve."

I thought about that.

"The war messed him up pretty bad, didn't it?" I said. "He ever talk to you about it?"

Two-Bit shook his head, ground his cigarette butt under his heal, took out his pack and lit another. Suzie sat in the back seat, happily sucking away at her candy and examining her picture book. "Nah, not Steve. I heard about it from Soda, though."

I suddenly felt cold all over. "Soda wrote to you?"

"Yeah, he did."

"You still have the letters?" I asked hopefully.

"Yeah," Two-Bit said flatly.

"Could I read them?" I asked eagerly. I felt like I was getting a piece of my brother back. Soda had written me and Darry lots of letters before he died. I'd read them all dozens of times.

Two-Bit looked me in the eye. He didn't answer right away, like he was trying to make up his mind about something. "You sure you want to?" he asked.

"What's in the letters?" I asked. Why would Two-Bit keep this last piece of my brother from me?

Two-Bit looked me over calmly, measuring me with his eyes, the way he used to look guys over before a fight. Finally he said, "Nothin' you can't handle. Darry and Soda always protected you too much. Most of the time I don't think you needed it. I think they did it more to protect themselves than to protect you. Don't get me wrong. I think Darry did a good job with what he had, but I think he drove you away."

Two-Bit lit another cigarette. I was still working on mine, thinking of a reply to what Two-Bit had said. I never knew that Two-Bit thought that way about Darry and Soda. I didn't know what to say.

"I told him so, too, right after Soda died." Two-Bit gave me a wry grin. "Thought ol' Darry was never gonna speak to me again, he was so mad."

Suddenly I realized that a lot had gone on behind my back, or maybe right in front of me. I felt like my brothers and Two-Bit and Steve were all strangers even though I'd known them all my life.

"What did you say to him?" I asked.

"Oh, just that you needed space to deal with everything, that you didn't need him hangin' around your neck like a rope. The more he pulled on you, the more you wanted to get away. I told him to try leavin' you alone for a while, let you figure things out for yourself."

"He did. I thought it was because of me. I almost killed myself."

"Yeah, but you didn't," Two-Bit said. I think I understood then how hard that must have been for him, how much Darry must have hated him. "If Darry had kept on you like he was, do you think you wouldn't have overdosed?"

I thought about that. "No," I said honestly. "I think it would have happened sooner or later…probably sooner."

"Sometimes you gotta fall so you know how to pick yourself back up. You're standin' now ain'tcha?"

I looked at my feet, dropped my borrowed cigarette and ground it under my heel. I was standing. Darry had given me my space. I'd come back to him all on my own.

I wondered when Two-Bit had gotten so smart.

"If you want the letters, I'll get 'em for you," Two-Bit told me.

"Thanks," I said.

Two-Bit drove me home. I was happy to sit and listen to him banter back and forth with Susie while I stared out the window.

When we pulled up to a stoplight I noticed a group of high school-aged kids waiting at a bus stop, four or five of them. All of them had long hair, longer than I'd ever worn mine. They were roughhousing and swearing and getting some nasty looks from business people in three-piece suits and moms with little kids. They looked like the kind of guys that Two-Bit would chase out of his store for shoplifting. They looked like the kids we used to be.

I thought about Steve, still working at the same gas station and shoplifting from the same stores after ten years. I think I understood him a little. Maybe I looked different on the outside, but on the inside I still felt just like those kids at the bus stop. I didn't feel twenty-four. I felt like I was still fourteen. I don't think anyone ever does grow up. I think we just look older, but we're still the same people on the inside, and always will be.

Continued in Chapter 8…


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

I didn't tell Darry about Soda's letters, or about Steve or the conversation I had with Two-Bit outside of the drug store. A lot of things were starting to fall into place for me now. I understood why Darry wasn't pushing me to tell him about Chicago, why he hadn't hollered at me for running off to the cemetery when I was supposed to be resting.

After dinner I helped Darry finish painting Soda's and my old room. I was feeling stronger, and as long as I didn't reach up too high my side didn't bother me.

"Don't worry too much about gettin' paint on the floor," Darry told me, "I'm gonna put carpet down anyway."

"In the living room too?" I asked. The floors had always been hardwood. Our house was pretty old, built in the twenties or thirties.

"Yeah, the whole house, except for the kitchen. I'm going to paint the outside of the house this summer."

I'm pretty smart, but sometimes I don't see what's right in front of my face. This time I did.

"Are you gonna marry Cynthia?" I asked.

Darry stopped painting in mid-stroke. "We were thinkin' about it. I haven't gotten her a ring yet." He faced me, and paint dripped off his brush onto the plastic-covered floor. "How'd you guess that, Ponyboy?"

"Why else would you want to paint this old room unless someone was gonna live in it?" I asked. "And I saw the color you picked out for the trim. It's pink."

Darry cocked an eyebrow at me and said in a mock-serious voice, "What, you don't like pink anymore?"

I shrugged, "I guess not as much as you do."

"Watch it, little buddy," he said, running a paint-covered hand through my hair. He was smiling. He hadn't called me 'little buddy' in a long time.

There was beer in the fridge but I wasn't supposed to mix alcohol with my meds. I drank a coke while Darry sipped his beer. I went to use the john and when I came back Darry was sitting at the kitchen table reading the label on my new prescription. I must have left it out on the counter.

"The other one was kinda strong," I explained. "It wasn't makin' me feel so great."

"Yeah?" He didn't look up from the bottle. There was something on his mind besides the bottle of painkillers. It took Darry a few more sips of beer to get around to it.

"Cynthia is pregnant."

I was taking a drink and I almost choked. When I stopped coughing I said, "What? Darry, that's great."

He didn't look like it was great.

"I mean, it's yours, ain't it?"

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure about that…Gosh almighty, Ponyboy. I thought we were careful."

Right at that moment it was hard to believe that Darry was thirty. He looked so young right then, and kind of scared and vulnerable. I can't remember him ever looking that way before. It made me feel kinda strange, like I was his older brother, not the other way around.

"When did you find out?" I asked.

"A couple of days ago. The same night you showed up." Darry rubbed his face in his hands. Darry was real quiet for a while.

He was going to be a dad. I was going to be an uncle.

I couldn't understand why Darry was so upset.

"Do you love her?" I asked.

"Yeah, I guess," he said, Then, with more conviction, "Yes, I love her."

"If you didn't love her you'd still marry her, though, wouldn't you?" Darry would always do the right thing.

I expected Darry to answer right away, but he didn't. After a beat he said, "I don't want to mess up with this kid like I did with you and Soda."

I looked at him for a long time. He really meant what he was saying.

"You never messed up," I told him. It was the truth. "You're gonna make a good dad. You were real good with me and Soda."

He looked genuinely surprised. "You mean that?"

"Yeah, I do. Maybe I never said so before...I probably should have done it a long time ago."

Out of nowhere my eyes started to cloud up. Darry looked at me real careful. He must have seen how close I was to bawling. I turned away, tried to look at the floor, the walls, anything but Darry.

"Pony?" he asked. "What's wrong?"

I was shaking. I mean, I was really shaking, so bad that I had to set my coke down before I spilled it all over the floor.

"I don't hate you," I told Darry. "Two-Bit said you thought I hated you. I don't. I couldn't ever hate you."

I hadn't been able to tell him about what happened in Chicago. It hurt to even think about it. I'd ever been so scared in my entire life, but before I knew it the whole story was spilling out of me. I told Darry everything: the interview, the alley, getting stabbed, and how I'd staggered to some old lady's door and pounded on it until she called the cops.

When I was done I told Darry, "You saved my life, you know that? I was in that alley. I was bleedin' to death, and when I thought I was done, I thought about you. I couldn't let you down."

Darry's face was white and unreadable. Both his fists were clenched on the countertop. If his beer bottle had still been in his hand I think he could have crushed it. He looked…I don't know…almost scared, but so calm.

"Let me see." He was looking at my chest.

I pulled up my shirt and let him have a look. Darry let out a low hiss when I pulled back the bandage. I guess it looked a lot worse than he thought it would. It wasn't bleeding anymore, but the wound was ugly, criss-crossed with black stitches, a horrible pinkish color where scar tissue was starting to form.

"Does it hurt?" he asked. He wore a pained expression, like it hurt him just to look at it.

"Some. It's not so bad with the painkillers."

"You really know how to scare the life outta me, you know that?"

"Are you mad at me?" I asked.

He looked surprised. "No, Pony. I ain't mad at you."

"I wish you were mad at me," I said quietly.

I used to think Darry didn't care about me, that he would have been just as happy to stick me in a boys' home. I hated how he used to holler at me all the time, but then I figured out that was how he showed that he cared. Darry scared me, and I needed that.

"Well, I ain't mad at you, Ponyboy." Darry wrapped his arms around me in a bone-crushing hug. He was careful of my stitches. "For somebody so smart you sure can be stupid sometimes," he said gently. "Glory, you don't even know how much I worry about you."

"You'll make a good Dad, Darry. Don't worry about that, you hear me?"

"Yeah…I hear you, little buddy."

I didn't leave that night like I said I would. I slept in Darry's bed and Darry took the sofa. Whether it was the new drugs or the conversation that Darry and I had, I got the best night of sleep I'd had in six years.

It was nearly the last night of sleep I ever got.

Continued in Chapter 9…


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

I helped Darry make breakfast in the morning. I made a special run to the store for baking chocolate and chocolate chips for the pancakes.

Several years ago me and my old girlfriend, Cathy, worked out a recipe for chocolate pancakes. I think the recipe was the best thing that came out of our relationship. She was a nice girl, smart and funny. I liked her a lot, but I knew she was only going out with me because she couldn't have the guy she wanted. In the end we both knew we wouldn't ever be anything more than good friends. We kept in touch for a long time. She even visited me in Memphis about a year ago. Back then she told me that she and Bryon were finally talking again. I guess things between them worked out okay, because I hadn't heard from her since.

Darry made coffee and eggs while I fixed stacks of pancakes for us both. I didn't realize until I was done pouring the batter that I'd automatically cut the recipe down, since there were two of us now, not three. The funny thing was; I didn't feel sad. That was the first time I could remember thinking about Soda and not feeling sad.

"Darry, have you thought about names yet?" I asked as soon as we sat down to eat. That was as long as I could contain my excitement.

Darry's fork stopped halfway to his mouth. He shook his head. "I thought I'd leave that to Cynthia."

I must have looked sort of disappointed. Darry said, "If it's a boy maybe we can name him after Soda."

"No," I told him. I said it more serious than I intended to. He looked kind of shocked, so I followed it up with, "He should have his own name…or she. It could be a girl."

Darry nodded, "Yeah." I could tell he was still a little surprised that I'd snapped at him.

I explained, "He wouldn't be Soda, ya know?" Soda was one-of a kind, not like anybody I'd ever known. It seemed wrong to name somebody else after him, like he could be replaced.

"Right," Darry agreed, still sounding a little sad.

"It should be something original, though," I said, "something unique."

"Well, you're the writer," Darry pointed out.

I was surprised at how good it felt to hear him say that.

"You know, you don't have to go back, Pony."

He said it kind of quiet. At first I wasn't sure I heard him right. When I didn't answer right away, he said, "I've got the space and I could use some help fixing up the house. I know Tulsa's not Chicago but…just think about it, alright?"

I did think about it. Darry left for work, and after I washed the breakfast dishes I half-dozed on the sofa, taking in the familiar smells and feel of the house where I'd spent most of my life. I was almost asleep when I heard a knock at the door. I thought that it might be Two-Bit, coming to visit me during his lunch hour, but it was barely ten o'clock in the morning. Most people knew Darry's hours. They wouldn't come knocking when they knew he wasn't home.

Through the living room window I could make out a dark shape at the door, too large to be a woman or a child; maybe a neighbor or a salesman, then. I opened the front door and stood face-to face with a dark-haired man in a chocolate-brown leather jacket. He was about forty or forty-five years old and easily twice my size. I'm not especially tall. I had to look up to see his face. My eyes didn't stay there very long, though. They traveled back down to his jacket. I'd seen it before, but at the time, I'd thought it was black.

"Curtis," he greeted me, like we were old friends. I couldn't place the accent, but I recognized the voice. The last time I'd heard it had been in a dark alley in Chicago: _Don't you dare scream, man. Don't you dare scream._

I felt like the floor had dropped out from under me. I could only think of one thing: Run. I don't know what gave me away, but as soon as the thought crossed my mind, the man's thick arm darted out and snagged me by the collar. He spun me around without any effort, twisting my arms behind my back. My feet were bare, and they scrambled for a hold as he dragged me across the porch and down the front steps towards a waiting car.

I didn't scream.

Even though I used to work on cars with my brothers I've never been very interested in them. Soda or Steve could have told me the make, model and year inside of five seconds. All I knew right then was that it had four doors and that one of them was open, waiting for me.

There were two men already in the car. All I could see of the driver was the bald crown of his head and his dark eyes as he watched me being shoved into the back seat beside an older man. The older guy looked like he was at least fifty. He was wearing a light-colored blazer, the kind that only has one button in the front.

The man in the leather jacket climbed in behind me.

I scanned for a way to escape. I was sandwiched in between two big guys. Both of the rear doors were blocked. If I moved quick enough I could maybe dive into the front seat and try for the passenger side door, but there was no way I could make it before one of them grabbed me. These guys were a lot older and bigger than me, and they looked tougher than anyone I'd ever faced in a street fight.

The man in the leather jacket seemed to read my mind. He said, "Don't even think about it, kid. It ain't worth what we'll do to you if you try anything."

The car started up. We drove off. My old house -Darry's house- got smaller and smaller in the rear-view mirror until it disappeared altogether.

The older man pulled a pack of Camels from his jacket. He took one for himself, but I was surprised when he offered me one. I wasn't too surprised to take it, though. My hands were shaking so bad that I had to put the cigarette in my mouth before he could light it. Now that I was sitting still I realized that my side was aching. I'd probably pulled some stitches.

"You're awfully quiet for a newspaper man," he observed. He said it so calm, like the man on my right hadn't tried to kill me a week ago. I felt like I was in a dream that I couldn't wake up from.

"You know why we're here?"

I did.

For the past few days I'd convinced myself that since I was home with my big brother, I was safe. It's like when you're a kid and you think that as long as you hide under the covers, the monsters in your closet can't get you. But the monsters had come anyway.

I thought about not answering, or denying it. I might have been able to convince these guys they had the wrong man, but I kind of doubted it. I'd met guys like these before. I was sure they wouldn't appreciate being lied to.

"You're here because I talked to Murray," I said.

"Murray," he laughed. "Was that what he was calling himself?"

I didn't answer.

"Relax, kid. It ain't all your fault. I warned Charlie that he was digging somewhere he shouldn't be. I also warned him what would happen to him or anyone who helped him. Charlie's got a hell of a big mouth, but he doesn't listen."

"What happened to him?" I asked, afraid that I already knew what they'd done with my boss.

He gave me a long, measuring look, like he was sizing me up for a fight. "You're not much of a writer if you can't guess how that story ended."

I risked one more question, "How did you find me?"

The older man pulled something out of his pocket. I recognized it. It was my wallet, the one that I'd lost the night I'd been stabbed. I kept my very first driver's license inside, the one with my old address –Darry's address- printed on it.

Charlie was dead, and I was about to die for a story I hardly knew anything about. It didn't seem fair, but I've known for a long time that life isn't fair.

I tried to think, to figure a way out of this, but all I could think of was Darry. I wondered what would go through his mind when he came home to find the front door wide open and my shoes lying under the coffee table.

"Let me call my brother," I said. "He's the only family I've got. Just let me tell him myself. I don't want him to find out from some stranger."

"No can-do, kid," the older man said smoothly, like he was a cop telling me I couldn't talk my way out of a speeding ticket. "I think you'd try to run off on us."

He was right. I would have.

The car slowed to a stop at a traffic light. Through the windshield I could see a tall gas station sign looming over us. DX, it read in big blue letters. It was the same DX where I used to work, where Soda had worked. I got a strange feeling then, like my brother was looking down on me, like he knew what was going on. It gave me the chills.

The light turned green and the gas station disappeared behind us, along with that strange feeling. We were heading out towards the edge of town. My chances of escape were thinning out along with the houses. There were more spaces between them now. Fenced-in horses stood around cropping the grass in the early spring sunshine, totally oblivious to the danger that I was in. I envied them.

"I'm just curious kid: What did you know about the story that Charlie was working on?" the older guy asked me.

I told him what I knew. It was mostly stuff I remembered Murray saying in his interview. When I was done, the older guy looked at me carefully, and then he burst out laughing. I didn't see what was so funny.

"Damn, kid. Didn't Charlie even tell you what the interview was about?"

"He said I'd be better off if I didn't know." I guess Charlie was wrong.

I kind of expected him to tell me the rest of the story, like they do in movies. I wanted to know what was so important that Murray and Charlie and now I had to die, but life isn't a movie. No one is ever going to tell you the whole story.

"How old are you, kid?"

"Twenty-four," I said.

All three men rumbled with laughter. "They get younger every year," said the man in the driver's seat.

The older man finished his cigarette and snuffed it out in the ashtray near his elbow. "Naw, I think we're just getting older." He lit another one. "You surprise me, kid. Tougher men than you, sitting where you're sitting would be bawling their eyes out right now."

"Wouldn't do me any good," I said.

"No, it wouldn't," he agreed.

The man on my right, the one who had stabbed me last week, the one who had dragged me across our front lawn and thrown me into the car, said, "This isn't personal, you know, kid? It's business." He said it kind of quiet, almost like he was sorry. Maybe he was.

"Yeah," I said, "I know."

The houses disappeared, replaced by miles of barbed-wire fences and green-gold fields. The rolling hills looked like the ones that Johnny and I had passed on our way to Windrixville, and I thought we might be close to that old church on Jay Mountain. Then I remembered that it had burned down years ago. There was nothing left now but splinters and ash.

Clouds rolled in. The sunlight faded to a dim glow, giving everything a kind of gray look. Raindrops peppered the road in front of us, slowly at first, then faster, until the highway was one long shiny black ribbon.

My right heel hammered out a fast, steady rhythm on the floor of the car.

"What kind of a name is 'Ponyboy' anyway?" the older man asked. He was examining my driver's license, which he'd pulled out of my wallet.

"It's just a name, something my dad came up with," I said absently. "You never told me your names."

"Didn't figure you'd be interested."

"I'm not really, but I figure it's only fair."

The older man laughed out loud at that, and the other two chuckled along with him. I felt like I was a five-year-old sitting at the grown-ups' table.

"You're right, kid. It's only fair. You can call me Frank. That's Ellis" -he indicated the driver- "and you've already met Dino." The man in the leather jacket gave me a nod. Unconsciously I wrapped my arms around my chest.

"Your old man must be an interesting guy," Frank said.

"Yeah, he was." It sounds strange, but sometimes it's easier to talk to complete strangers about personal stuff than it is to talk to people you know. Maybe it's because you don't have to worry about what strangers think. Maybe that's why I liked writing so much. "I used to have a brother named Sodapop."

I could see that the driver, Ellis, was smiling in the rear-view mirror, not cruel, just amused. I realized how it must sound to a stranger and I kind of smiled too. This whole situation seemed so surreal.

"So…what, are you an orphan or somethin', kid?"

"I've got an older brother. He pretty much raised me and Soda after our folks died."

"Oh yeah? I had a brother myself." Frank's guard seemed to drop. "Sam. He was a good kid, loved football-"

"-a real hit with the ladies," Ellis finished. They were both smiling, like they were silently sharing the same memory of Sam. I kind of got the impression that Sam wasn't alive anymore.

"What happened to him?" I asked.

The smile faded from Frank's lips. "It was an accident. At least, that's what the guy who shot him said."

I didn't ask for the details. Instead I said, "Soda died six years ago, in the war. I'm not even sure how. They didn't even send his body. It was just a box of sand."

I'll never get used to talking about Soda in the past tense, never.

"That's too bad, kid," and he did sound sorry.

I'd smoked my cigarette down to the filter. Frank offered me a new one and lit it for me.

"Yeah, it is. He was a real good guy."

"Only the good die young," Frank said.

I imagined Sam: a younger Frank, more hair and less weight. I'd thought a lot about death, probably because of all the people I'd lost in my life. I used to wonder all the time why good people had to die, but then I realized that people aren't really good or bad. They're just people…like Dally and Johnny, boys who are hoodlums one minute and heroes the next. It's all how you look at it.

"You scared, kid?"

The cigarettes had steadied my nerves. Inside I was shaking like a leaf. I didn't see the point in lying. "Yeah," I said.

"That's good. It means you got sense."

I think maybe that was the first time anybody said that to me.

I lost track of time after that. My side was hurting more. We'd left the highway a while ago and I was sore from bouncing along the dirt road that we were following. I'd been holding myself so tense I was almost grateful when we finally pulled over.

Gravel crunched under the tires as the car slowed to a stop on the side of the road. My heart leapt into my throat.

"Turn around," Frank ordered me. When I didn't obey him right away he grabbed my shoulders and turned me. Then he tied my hands behind my back. Whatever he used, wire or string, it cut into my wrists something terrible.

Frank hauled me out of his side of the car, and things happened real quickly after that. For a second I felt Frank's grip loosen. I knew that might be my only chance to get away and I took it. I twisted out of Frank's grip, shoved him away from me and bolted off into the tall grass, still thinking clear enough to know that they couldn't take the car after me.

I ran for all I was worth. My heart pounded in time with my bare feet on the ground. The wind roared in my ears and tore at my hair. I didn't dare look back. The whole world shrank down to the endless stretch of dirt and grass beneath my feet. It seemed like I ran forever but it was probably only a minute or two.

I couldn't hear anything except for my own breathing over the wind. Without any kind of warning something large and heavy hit me from behind. My hands were tied behind my back and I had no way of protecting myself. I fell hard, right on my face and I actually felt my chin split open. The air shot from my lungs. I smelled leather and I knew what had struck me. Dino weighed a lot. He had me pinned to the ground under him.

For a long time all I could do was lay there, struggling to breath. Eventually I heard two sets of footfalls over the ringing in my ears.

"Stupid, kid. Really stupid," Frank wheezed as he and Ellis caught up to us. His forehead was shiny with sweat and the single button on his blazer had come off.

Frank took me by the right arm and stood me up. I saw stars when he did, and almost blacked out for a second. "Don't you pull a stunt like that again," he threatened.

When the stars cleared from my vision I saw that I hadn't gotten very far at all, maybe only a hundred yards or so. I felt like I'd been running for miles.

Frank and Dino walked me further away from the road through the tall grass. I felt it brushing against my bare ankles. Ellis followed close behind us. The rain had stopped but the wind was blowing, cutting right through my t-shirt. Hot blood ran down my neck and my chin was numb where I'd struck it.

I don't know how long we walked. My feet were numb. I kept stumbling. I'd just about resigned myself to the fact that we were going to keep walking forever when I heard Frank say, "This is good."

They forced me down onto my knees, then onto my stomach. I felt something cold on the back of my head and realized that it was the barrel of a gun. Up until that point I thought that I'd used up everything I had. I was wrong. I went wild and tried to buck them off of me. I felt my elbow make contact with someone's face. I knocked one of the men, probably the Ellis, on his rear end. Then somebody punched me in the back of the neck. I don't remember what all happened after that, but I do remember that it took all three of them to hold me down, and they were all sweating and cussing by the time they got me under control.

Afterward, with all of their weight crushing down on me, I remember laying there on my stomach thinking: _This is it_.

The air smelled like rain. The sound of the wind moving through the grass was the loudest thing I could hear. _I never stopped fighting, Darry. I never gave up,_ I thought. Somehow it seemed important that he should know that.

I heard a loud _bang_, and then…

…nothing happened. The ground was still wet and cold underneath me. The wind was still blowing in my ears. My neck still hurt where I'd been punched.

I felt the hot barrel of the gun pressing up against my cheek. I wasn't dead. I gasped out a breath into the mud.

"Let him up."

The hands on my arms and on my neck didn't loosen up a hair.

"What are you doing, Frank?"

"I said let him up!"

The hands went away.

"Sit up, kid. I ain't gonna kill you."

I sat up, not all the way, though. I rolled over, but I had to lean back on my elbows. I felt out of breath, like I'd just run a four-minute mile.

The other two men were looking at Frank now, confused. I could tell this wasn't part of the plan.

Frank wiped his gun down and holstered it under his jacket. In my defense he said, "He doesn't know anything. He's just a stupid kid who got wrapped up in something he had no business being wrapped up in. We're done here."

"It ain't exactly good business to leave loose ends," Dino reasoned.

"There wouldn't be a loose end if you'd done the job right in the first place, would there? This ain't a democracy. We're done." Frank asked.

"He's seen us," Ellis pointed out.

"He's seen us, so what? He's seen three old guys in a black car, that's who he's seen. He doesn't know who we are. He doesn't know anything. He doesn't even know our real names," Frank pulled the gun out of its holster. His voice rose in an angry tide, "Look, I didn't get where I am by killing people I don't need to kill. You want the kid dead so bad, you plug him."

Frank offered the gun around, holding it by the barrel. A tense moment passed while I waited for someone to take it from him. Ellis had his fists jammed in his pockets and Dino stood as motionless as a photograph. Nobody took the gun.

"He isn't Sam," Ellis said unexpectedly.

I felt confused, like maybe I'd blacked out and missed part of the conversation. Then I remembered that Sam was Frank's brother.

Frank's eyes went wide and for an instant I thought he was going to turn on his own guy and beat the tar out of him.

Ellis had his hands in his pockets and he was giving Frank a calm, level look. The driver was a skinny guy, but now that I could see him from the front he looked older than Frank. I got the feeling that these two had known each other for a long time.

After a few breaths Frank said, ice-cold, "He's somebody's Sam. Now do what I told you and get back to the car."

"Hey, Frank," said Dino. He was looking off into the distance. "We've got company."

Frank looked up. I had to squint, but I finally saw what they saw: a blue pickup winding its way down the empty country road. I felt a surge of relief: it was Darry's pickup.

"Get moving," Frank said.

Dino gave me one last look and turned his back. Ellis shrugged calmly and did the same. They started walking back towards the car.

Frank knelt down beside me, so close that I could feel the heat of his breath. He said to me, deadly serious, "Let me give you some advice, Ponyboy: Go home to your brother. Forget this ever happened. This is a gift. If I see you again, in Chicago or anywhere else, I'll take it away."

And I knew that he would.

The last thing he said to me was, "Tell the cops whatever you want. It won't make any difference."

Frank tossed my wallet into the grass beside me. He didn't untie my hands. The rain was falling again. My chin was oozing blood, so was the old knife wound in my side.

I lay there for a while, just breathing. When I finally stumbled to my feet the black sedan was gone and Darry's blue truck was skidding to a halt in the gravel. Two figures climbed out. I could tell that they saw me, because one of them started waving his arms. It was Darry. As they started towards me I realized the other was Steve. I was suddenly taken back ten years, to a time when I'd been jumped by five Socs in a red Corvair. It didn't occur to me to be confused why Steve was there.

Darry was yelling my name. I tried to walk toward him but my feet wouldn't move. I was so relieved to see Darry and Steve that I could have cried. Instead I started laughing.

"Ponyboy, are you alright?" Darry asked as he approached me.

I wasn't. I'm sure he could see that. And I must have broken some ribs when Dino tackled me, because when Darry's arms closed around me I felt a blinding pain in my chest. I passed out cold.

Continued in Chapter 10…


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

I found out later why Steve was with Darry when they found me. As it turns out, he was outside of the DX smoking one of his stolen cigarettes when a strange black Chrysler pulled up in front of him at a traffic light. The car looked completely out of place in our neighborhood and he'd never seen the three men inside it before. When he noticed me in the back seat he tossed his cigarette away and called the cops. Then he went to find Darry, who was working on the roof of a shopping center about ten blocks away.

After I passed out, Darry and Steve carried me back to the truck. Darry says that I was stone cold and almost as white as my t-shirt. The entire way to the hospital Darry kept making Steve check to see if I was breathing. I didn't really wake up until they got me to the hospital, and I don't remember much about that either. I was in shock and my side had started bleeding again. There were chunks of gravel imbedded in my feet, and it hurt something awful when the nurses dug them out. I have a pretty clear memory of that part, but not much else.

I had to get stitches in my chin and it turned out that I was right, I had cracked some ribs. My wrists were torn up too. I'd done a lot of damage to myself trying to get away.

Darry was with me most of the time I was in the hospital. When Darry wasn't there Two-Bit was. I even remember once waking up in the middle of the night and seeing Steve sitting by the light of a desk lamp, reading a newspaper. I thought that was weird because visiting hours were over. I must have said something along those lines because I remember him telling me to be quiet and go back to sleep. He said it gently, though, and I did. When I woke up next it was light out, and Steve was gone.

The doctors sent a cop in to interview me before I was released from the hospital. I think I frustrated him more than anything. He already had Steve's description of the men and the car, and I couldn't provide them with much more information, except that they were from Chicago. I didn't tell the cop their names. I'm not sure why. Frank had said I could tell the police anything I wanted. It wouldn't matter. So I supposed it wouldn't matter if I kept their names to myself. The cop left shaking his head, doubtful that he would get any help from the cops in Chicago. I doubted it too.

I was well enough to be released from the hospital, but I didn't want to go home with Darry. I worried about what would happen of Frank and his guys came back. I didn't want Darry or anybody else to get hurt because of something I'd done. I tried arguing with him, tried convincing him that I should leave town even though I wasn't in any kind of shape to be on my own. My brother listened patiently while I rambled on feverishly, and when I finally ran out of breath Darry looked me in the eye and he said, "Ponyboy, I worry about a lot of things, but what I worry most about is you. I worry about you lying dead in a ditch somewhere. That's what keeps me up at night."

Now that I was off the heavier pain meds I noticed the dark circles under his eyes. He looked a lot closer to forty than thirty, all because of me. I thought of all of the times I'd made him angry or scared or worried. I wished I could take them all back.

"If anything happened to you, it would kill me," he said. "It would just kill me."

I knew he was telling the truth. I can't imagine what it did to Darry to lose one younger brother. I could see that just the thought of losing both of us was more than he could take.

"Same goes for you," I said, and I meant it.

Sometimes it's a lot easier to be by yourself than it is to have someone who cares about you. 'Easier' isn't always better, though. I was glad that Darry and I had each other to care about.

In the end I let my brother take me home. I hadn't done more than walk to and from the john in three days. Just getting from the hospital entrance to Darry's waiting truck was a hassle.

"I'll try not to worry you anymore," I promised as we drove away from the hospital.

He told me, "Ponyboy, I'd worry about you no matter what."

I guess that's just part of being a parent.

Continued in Chapter 11…


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

My problems didn't end after I decided to stay in Tulsa. I was kind of a nervous wreck after I checked out of the hospital. I jumped at every little noise. I got panicked if Darry was five minutes late coming home from work. I even made him lock the doors at night, something he hadn't done since Mom and Dad died.

I had nightmares too, horribly vivid ones like I hadn't had since I was a kid. I dreamt that Frank came back for me. I dreamt that he was sitting in Dad's old armchair, smoking one of his Camels and reading the newspaper, just like Dad used to do. When he saw me he gave me a smile and folded his newspaper up. Then he pulled out a gun and shot me. I woke up gasping and clutching my chest.

I got angry over the dumbest things. I even yelled at Darry a couple of times, once because he asked me to smoke outside (I'd been smoking like a chimney since I got out of the hospital). I apologized to him once I cooled off, but I could tell that he was frustrated. He made some phone calls and took me to see a couple of doctors. They all thought the same thing: I needed time. But I wondered how much time was enough. So did Darry.

Just laying in bed drives me nuts, but I really didn't have much choice while my side and my feet were healing. Most mornings it was a chore just to make it to the sofa in the living room. I still prefer books over TV, and I'd only watch if Darry was home, so I spent most of my time reading or just thinking. Darry thought I needed something else to occupy myself, so as soon as I was well enough to hold a paintbrush he rousted me out of bed and made me help him finish Soda's and my old room. I got tired easy but after we were done with the room I felt less jittery.

We used up the leftover paint in the kitchen. Darry started inventing projects after that. He ordered new carpet for the living room and tore up the tile in the bathroom. By the time I was off the worst of the pain meds Darry and I were halfway through rebuilding the front porch. I went to bed exhausted every night, but I could finally sleep seven or eight hours without waking up in a cold sweat.

Two-Bit eventually brought me Soda's letters, but I had to pester him to death to get him to do it. He kept pretending that he'd forgotten until I finally cornered him called him on it. I guess he didn't want to upset me. After all I'd been through he probably thought that was the last thing that I needed. I couldn't blame him.

"No matter what happens you know you'll always be the baby of the gang, Ponyboy," he told me. "And to think I gave Darry a hard time for bein' overprotective. I guess old habits die hard."

There were ten letters in all, and they were held together in a bundle by two red rubber bands. I expected the letters to smell like my brother, but they didn't. They just smelled like ink and old paper. Even so, Soda was everywhere in those pages, from the way he misspelled his words to the way his handwriting got sloppy when he was tired.

If Two-Bit thought that Soda's letters would upset me, he was right, but not for the reasons that he thought. Mostly the letters told different versions of the stories I already knew, some of which made me blush clear up to the top of my head. In the letters he'd written to me and Darry the Asian jungles were bright green. In his letters to Two-Bit they were blood-red and full of bones. I had a hard time picturing my happy-go-lucky brother in a place like that.

I wasn't bothered so much by what was in the letters, though. I'd read the newspapers and I knew that there was a lot more going on over there than Soda would ever tell. What bothered me was that while I read them it was like Soda was alive again, even if it was only for a few hours. When Soda died six years ago I felt like someone had stopped telling a story in the middle of a sentence. After I read those letters I got that same exact feeling. It was like my brother died all over again.

I broke down and bawled like a baby after reading Soda's letters. Afterward I had the worst headache I've ever had, but I felt lighter, like a weight had been lifted off of me. I made dinner that night: chicken and potatoes and green beans from a can, chocolate cake for desert. It all came out perfect, the way dinner usually does if something is really upsetting me, but if Darry noticed my red eyes or my runny nose, he never said a word.

I gave the letters back to Two-Bit. I could tell from the look on his face that he had expected me to keep them. Those letters weren't meant for me, though.

Two-Bit visited me a lot while I recovered. When I got a little better he started bringing Susie along. You can bet that cheered me up. She's a bundle of energy. It seemed like every five or ten minutes Two-Bit had to pull her down off of a table or keep her from hitting her head on something sharp. Our house isn't exactly child-proof, especially with all the construction we were doing.

Sherri visited too. She's a very pretty girl in a plump sort of way. I don't remember seeing her at the hospital but Two-Bit said she cried when she saw how banged-up I was.

"She had a crush on you in high school," he told me one day. "She still thinks you're cute, couldn't stand to see that pretty face of yours all bruised and swollen."

Sherri was sitting right next to him when he said it. She was holding their baby daughter on her lap but that didn't stop her from reaching over and swatting Two-Bit on the arm. "Keith!" She was blushing furiously. So was I, but Two-Bit was grinning ear-to-ear.

Sherri knew that I had a weak spot for chocolate. She brought me a batch of cookies or brownies every time she came over. Now I knew where Two-Bit's extra weight came from. I swear I must have gained ten pounds in just a few weeks. Darry said I needed it but I knew I'd have to start running again soon before my jeans got too tight in the waist.

My feet took the longest time to heal. They were torn up pretty bad and the doctors said not to walk on them, but I did anyway. It was a pain keeping them clean, too. Just try to get a good look at the bottom of your own foot and you'll know what I'm talking about.

It took three full weeks before I could do much more than shuffle around the house. When I was finally healed enough to walk any kind of distance the first thing I did was go down to the DX. There was something I needed to do, something that had been nagging at me the whole time I was laid up.

I found Steve in the garage behind the gas station. I stood there for a while in the doorway, just watching him as he worked. Steve had an old red Mustang up on a lift and he was shining a flashlight into the undercarriage. He was wearing grease-stained gray coveralls and his long hair was pulled back into a ponytail. I noticed a spot on the back of his head where his hair wasn't so thick anymore. That's one thing that scared me about getting older, but Dad had never lost his hair and it didn't look like Darry ever would either, so I think I'm in the clear.

"Hey," I heard myself say. My voice echoed in the garage, and the word came out louder than I'd intended. Now that I was here I felt awkward. Steve and I had never talked, just the two of us. When I was younger I didn't think he could stand me if Soda or one of the other guys wasn't around.

Steve looked up, surprised. He put down the flashlight.

"Ponyboy…how are you doin'?"

"Better," I shrugged. I was still limping pretty badly. My feet were burning from the short walk, even wrapped so thick in gauze that my shoes barely fit. "Listen, I just came by to say thanks for what you did."

Steve looked confused for a second. Then he seemed to realize what I was talking about. "Shoot, man. It wasn't anything. Those looked like some pretty tough characters."

"Yeah, they were."

I was still standing ten or twelve feet away from him, like I was afraid that the car might fall on me if I got too close. I kept my eyes on the ground. I hadn't seen Steve since he visited me in the hospital, and I hadn't been in any sort of shape to talk to him then. He hadn't come by the house at all while I was healing. I felt real awkward. "So anyway, thanks, not just for getting Darry, but for coming out there."

When I looked up at Steve I was surprised to see a stricken expression on his face. Angry, hard, tough-as-nails Steve looked like he was about to cry. He probably wouldn't want me around if he did.

I tried to back away, "I'll see you around…"

"Ponyboy, wait."

I stopped in my tracks. Steve closed the distance between us, wiping his hands on a shop rag. "Listen, I'm glad you're okay. I couldn't stand it if anything happened to Soda's kid brother."

I felt my eyes start to water too. Time heals all wounds, sure, but it was going to take a lot longer than six years for me to get over losing Soda. Maybe someday I'd be able to talk about him without my eyes welling up. Not today, though.

"God, I still miss him," Steve choked out.

"Me too," I said. Finally I had something in common with Steve Randle.

"You know, I used to hate you," he said. That surprised me, not because he had hated me, but because he was telling me so. "Soda was my best friend, but you were his little brother. He cared more about you than about anyone else. You know that?"

I couldn't answer him. I'd cared more about Soda than anyone else.

"I was always kind of jealous of you that way." Steve said quietly.

"Do you still hate me?" I asked. I don't know why it meant so much to me what Steve thought, but it did. It mattered a whole lot.

Steve was quiet for a second, like he had to decide. "No," he said, "not at all."

I nodded, relieved. It took me a minute to find my voice again. "I'd better let you get back to work."

"I appreciate you comin' by," Steve said, putting a hand out for me to shake. I grasped it, and on impulse, I pulled him into a tight hug. To my surprise he returned it, and pounded me on the back like I was his little brother and not Soda's.

After that day, Steve and I started talking to each other more and more. He never did get over losing his best friend. I never got over losing my brother. The wounds closed, but the scars would always be there. I wouldn't want it to be any different.

Continued in Chapter 12…


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Once things had settled down I finally got to meet Cynthia. Darry invited her and Rachel over for dinner once I was mostly healed. I was as excited for the company as I was for the chance to spend an evening doing something that didn't involve a hammer, paint or nails.

As it turned out, Cynthia's picture didn't do her justice. And I changed my mind about one little girl being less trouble than two teenage boys. If Rachel turned out anything like her mom, Darry would have to dig a moat around the house to keep the boys away. One look at his bulging biceps, though, and they might be too terrified to go anywhere near her.

To top it off, Cynthia was just as sweet as she was gorgeous. I could see how she'd make a good teacher. She seemed like the type of person who was real good with little kids.

The three of us all pitched in to make dinner. It reminded me of a different time when there were three of us in the kitchen at once, laughing and goofing around, throwing food at each other.

Maybe I got swept up in the moment. Maybe it was the two beers that I'd drunk, the first alcohol I'd had in a month. I don't know. When Darry left the room for a minute to help Rachel set the table I told Cynthia, "Boy, if Darry doesn't ask you to marry him, it'll be about the dumbest thing he ever did."

The words were out of my mouth before I had a chance to really think about what I was saying. Cynthia grinned and covered her mouth, looking over my shoulder. When I turned around I saw that Darry was standing in the kitchen doorway. I guess maybe he'd forgotten the silverware. My brother's mouth was open wide enough to catch flies. He was holding a stack of plates, gripping them so tight that I was surprised they didn't crack in his hands.

I felt like I was ten years old again and about to get clobbered for poking a hole in Darry's football.

That was more or less how Darry proposed to Cynthia.

My brother got married over the Fourth of July weekend. The ceremony was outdoors in the little park down the street from our old house. Their wedding wasn't big or fancy, but there was a barbecue and a big white cake and plenty of fireworks and sparklers for the kids. It's a lot of fun to have kids around on the holidays.

Two-Bit in a suit: that's an image that will stay with me for the rest of my life, partly because he's standing in the front row of the wedding photo that Darry hung on his living room wall.

Darry and Cynthia are in the middle of the picture, with the rest of the wedding party standing around them. Darry is smiling. His eyes are bright and warm. I wondered how I could have ever thought they looked like ice. I was Darry's best man, and I'm standing next to him. I thought the scar on my chin still looked pretty bad, but in the picture you can barely see it.

Cynthia's hands are resting on her daughter's shoulders. Rachel is wearing a gauzy lavender dress that makes her look like a little princess instead of a flower girl. Two-Bit is next to me, and his arm is around his wife. His two girls are sitting on the grass, so engrossed in pulling out handfuls of it that they don't look up as the picture is being taken.

Cynthia's parents are standing behind their daughter and their son-in-law. I met them for the first time at the wedding. They're nice folks, real down-to-earth. They knew that Cynthia was pregnant before the wedding. It didn't seem to matter to them so long as their daughter was happy.

Steve is in the picture too. He was one of Darry's groomsmen. In the picture he's standing between Two-Bit and one of Darry's old skiing buddies. He's wearing a shadow of his cocky old smile. He was glad to be there for Darry but I think the smile had more to do with one of Cynthia's bridesmaids, a pretty dark-eyed girl on the other side of the photograph.

After the wedding reception was over and we'd sent the bride and groom off on their honeymoon Two-Bit and Sherri invited some of the guests to their house for a night-cap. I made a half-hearted attempt to help clean up once everyone else had gone home, but Two-Bit, with his tie loosened, told me, "Leave it. Our place has seen worse than this. We've got two pint-sized terrors that make this a regular tornado alley." He kicked up his feet on an overturned chair, popped the top off a Budweiser and offered me one.

Long after Sherri put the girls to bed Two-Bit and I stayed up drinking beer and talking. I was worried about what I was going to do for a job. I'd been filling in for a couple of Darry's guys whenever he needed me, and the physical labor was helping me put some muscle back on my frame, but I needed to find a regular job. And with Cynthia and Rachel moving in, I wanted to find a place of my own.

Two-Bit just shrugged. "Things happen when they need to happen, and if they don't, you're always welcome to come and work for me…" He grinned. I'd had similar offers from a few friends around town. I appreciated the gesture, but I was still feeling mixed-up, like I didn't know what I wanted anymore.

With Darry off on his honeymoon I didn't want to go home to an empty house, so Two-Bit let me crash on his sofa. When I woke up the next morning he was still passed out in his recliner.

Sherri was the only one up and about that early, but she looked as bleary-eyed as I felt. There were still bobby pins in her hair and mascara smudges under her eyes. She asked me to stay for breakfast but I turned her down. I told her that my stomach just wasn't in the mood. Really I just didn't want to impose on her hospitality any more. When I went to leave Sherri gave me a peck on the cheek. Two-Bit was right, Sherri really did like me, but she loved Two-Bit.

The walk home was only a few blocks, but my feet didn't take me there. Yesterday I'd gotten to thinking about family, and how Mom and Dad and Soda would have loved to see Darry get married. Since they couldn't be there, I decided I should tell them about it.

It wasn't quite six o'clock in the morning yet. A low fog covered the wet grass in the cemetery, giving it a spooky feel, like the start of a ghost story. I haven't believed in ghosts since I was a kid, but when I saw a lone figure standing amongst the headstones, I could have sworn I was looking at one.

Cherry Valance was dressed in a tan car coat over a dark blue skirt and a lacey white blouse. Her red hair was pulled back from her face. The damp morning air darkened it and made it curl up at the ends. She was just as pretty as I remembered, like the last ten years hadn't happened. Standing there in my wrinkled suit, with my tie undone and hanging around my neck I was suddenly self-conscious.

Cherry was standing over one of the graves. There were fresh flowers at her feet, and it was clear that she had brought them. Now I knew who had been leaving flowers for Dallas Winston.

I watched her for a while, not saying anything. She hadn't noticed me. Maybe I was the ghost here. Maybe Frank had killed me and I just wasn't smart enough to know it.

Just then Cherry turned around, like she was going to leave. She saw me and jumped, startled. I put my hands up, palms out. "Sorry!" I said. "I didn't mean to sneak up on you."

Cherry took a deep breath and for a second she looked like she had a few choice words for me. Then recognition flashed in her eyes, "Ponyboy?"

"Hi, Cherry," I said. I was a little shaken myself. "Really, I didn't mean to interrupt. I can leave you alone if you want."

"No, its okay," she said quickly, taking a step towards me. "Gosh, it's been a long time since anybody called me Cherry."

"Oh, I'm sorry. Sherry then…"

"No, I mean, I don't mind. Don't be sorry. It's actually kind of nice. It's good to see you again."

"You too. You look good." I said. I could have kicked myself, but instead I settled for blushing as red as a lobster.

Cherry smiled. "Thanks." She looked at me for a minute, like she was considering something. I've never been good at reading girls. Finally she said, "You look good too."

I felt a little spark in my chest when she said that. It went out when I noticed the wedding band on her finger. I guess I stared a little too long. She caught me looking and held up her hand so that I could see it.

"Congratulations," I said, feeling like I should at least be respectful.

"Thanks."

"Does he treat you alright?"

"Yeah, he's a real good guy," she said, but there was something about the way she said it, like being a good guy didn't make you a great husband.

Cherry's clothes looked expensive. She probably had a nice big house to go home to and a fancy car to get her there. Why, I wondered, was she was out here hovering over the grave of a dead hood she'd barely known?

Cherry looked like she couldn't find anything else to say and neither could I. In the awkward silence we both looked down at Dally's grave. When I looked up at Cherry again I saw that she was twisting the ring on her finger, and there were tears on her cheeks. I don't think they had anything to do with Dally.

Cherry didn't have a handkerchief. She was using her sleeve to dab at the corners of her eyes. I pulled my tie off and gave it to her.

"Do you need to be somewhere right now?" I heard myself ask.

Cherry shook her head.

"Would you like to talk, maybe over coffee?"

She didn't answer right away. I felt awkward because I thought she was going to turn me down.

She didn't.

"Yeah," Cherry answered, and smiled through her tears, "I'd like that."

The morning sun was starting to burn away the fog. Cherry took my arm so that she wouldn't slip on the dew-covered grass in her high heels. We walked to a little diner a few blocks from the cemetery that was open for breakfast. It was usually filled with kids drinking cokes and blowing straws at each other, but it was still early. The only other customer was an elderly man reading a newspaper at the counter.

Cherry and I sat down in a corner booth. We ordered coffee and toast from a bleach-blond waitress. Cherry's tears were all gone but her eyes were still red. The waitress gave us both a funny look. I imagine that we looked like an odd pair, with me in my rumpled suit and Cherry in her Sunday best. None of that seemed to matter to Cherry, though.

"You're probably asking yourself why I was up there this morning," Cherry said when our coffee came.

I was. I've never been good at hiding what I'm thinking.

"Sometimes things don't work out the way you thought they would," she explained, "and you end up wanting what you can't have."

Cherry told me about her life after high school. It turned out that she'd gotten married right out of college. Her husband, whom she'd met at her big fancy school, was a lawyer. He made good money, but he was never around. They'd been trying to start a family, but that was a tough thing to do when one side of the bed was always cold.

Cherry had regrets. Sometimes she wondered what her life would have been like if things had been different. Her parents always told her that everything happens for a reason, but it was getting harder and harder for her to see what that reason was. Most of the time Cherry thought that the best time of her life was when she was sixteen, when the world was big and dangerous and full of possibilities. All of that was gone now, buried by bills and groceries and dirty laundry. When she felt overwhelmed by her mundane suburban life and her shallow friends she would come to the cemetery and visit a boy who symbolized everything she had loved about her youth. She would visit Dally, and she would remember all of the wonder and the excitement of that first blush of teenage love.

"It sounds crazy, I know," she said, looking down at her folded hands.

"It's not crazy," I told her. For Cherry, Dally would always be seventeen: a wild young hood who had teased her at a drive-in movie, the tragic unrequited love of her young life. It wasn't Dally that she loved, but a time in her life, one that she could never get back.

I think Cherry realized that too.

We talked for a while about old times and old friends, but eventually I couldn't steer the conversation away from myself anymore. Over the last few months it had been getting easier to talk about everything that had happened since I left Chicago. It still wasn't something I liked to do, but Cherry made it painless.

There was one thing that had been bothering me more than anything else. I hadn't told anyone, not the doctors, not even Darry or Two-Bit. I told Cherry, though:

"I haven't been able to write anything since I left the hospital," I said. It had been bugging me something terrible. It was like I'd gone blind or lost my sense of smell. I loved to write, I'd always loved it. Now, even when I tried, my pen just sat there on the paper. The only thing that came out of it was a blue dot of ink.

Cherry was resting her chin on her knuckles, frowning as she listened to my story. "People don't just lose the ability to write or read or speak," she reasoned. "It's still there. It'll come back."

I didn't understand how she could be so confident. It almost made me feel like she wasn't taking me seriously. I could feel my pulse racing. I hadn't realized I was so upset about this until now.

Cherry waited for me to calm down a little before she asked, "What do you think about?"

That was an awful broad question. "What do you mean?"

"What's on your mind?"

There was a lot on my mind: Charlie and Frank and the whole Chicago mess, Soda and Darry, Steve and Two-Bit. Everyone and everything that had happened to me in the last four months was all jumbled together in a big rat's nest on the inside of my skull.

Cherry looked me in the eyes. God she was pretty. I suddenly hated her husband, and I hadn't even met the guy.

"You need to let it out," she said.

'Let it out.' That was doctor-speak for crying or screaming or talking endlessly about some horrible thing that had happened to you in your childhood. I'd talked about everything I could think of. There wasn't anything else to 'let out'.

"You know what I mean, Ponyboy," she said.

I swallowed. I knew what it was she was getting at. I think I'd known the answer all along.

We talked until hamburger patties replaced the eggs on the grill and the lunch rush had come and gone. Cherry offered me a ride home but I turned her down. Ten years ago it would have been because I was ashamed of the neighborhood I lived in. That kind of thing didn't matter so much anymore. There's a kind of honesty and acceptance in growing older. I just wanted the extra time to think.

Cherry and I didn't exchange phone numbers but I was sure that wouldn't be the last time I saw her. It is a damn small world after all. I hoped that we'd talk again over breakfast at that little diner. Cherry told me a long time ago that she thought I was the only person she could get through to. She said she didn't feel like she had to keep her guard up with me. I felt the same way about her too. I tried to decide whether or not that made the two of us friends. I'd like to think so.

I took the long way home after Cherry drove off. It took me three hours to get there. By the time I heard the screen door slam shut behind me I was bone tired and starved. I went rummaging through the kitchen, but I wasn't looking for something to eat. I knew where Darry kept his old architectural notebooks, the kind with the crisscrossing blue lines on a white background. I found a blank one in the back of a drawer and I sat down at the kitchen table with a charcoal pencil. Then I did what Cherry had told me to do: I let it out. When my pencil started to move, my story began like this:

_The first time I was stabbed I was twenty-four years old. I'd been cut before, and guys had pulled blades on me plenty of times, but that was the first time I'd come close to being killed with one…_

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The End

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